Apple Lists iPhone 12 And Many Other Products Pose Risk to Pacemakers
Smartphones Can Easily Be Used with Implanted Pacemaker, And Designed to Revert Back to Normal Once the Magnet Is Removed
World-renowned tech giant Apple has recently given a list of their products that should be kept a safe distance away from implanted medical devices, including cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators. This list includes Apple iPhone 12 variants, MacBook Pro and Apple iWatch. Many of these consumer electronic mobile devices utilize components in their manufacturing, including strong magnets, that could possibly provide interference in the implanted medical devices and, in turn, cause major risky or even life-threatening situations for the user.
Possible complications with implanted medical devices
When asked from Apple for their comments, the firm has promoted their Apple Watch as it has features to monitor the health of the heart. Some of the models of the Apple Watch are able to take all ECG electrocardiogram tests, which enables the user to check their strength and timing of electrical signals, which makes their cardiac rhythm.
Although the recently given statement is in contradiction with it as some of the product’s components might become harmful in such cases.
Apple stated that under a certain specified set of conditions, electromagnetic fields and magnets could possibly provide unnecessary interference with these impacted medical devices. For example, individuals with implanted defibrillators and cardiac pacemakers might be installed with sensors that could respond to magnets and radios when placed in close proximity.
The implanted defibrillator devices are placed under the skin in patients suffering from frequent heart attacks and are used as a treatment to send electrical pulses inside the heart to regulator abnormal rhythms of the cardiac muscles. They might malfunction if placed near a magnetized object.
The tech firm has said that the mentioned list of products should be kept around 15 cm away from these medically implanted devices, and the distance should be doubled in case they are wirelessly being charged.
Like Apple, other tech manufacturing firms, including Huawei and Samsung, have also been issued similar kinds of guidelines regarding some of their products.
The new list of Apple products has been published on a support page of the firm in the first week of the month of June, which have confirmed that the Apple iPhone 12 variants of the smartphone are expected to pose a greater risk of creating an interference of magnetization with the implanted medical devices as compared to the other previous Apple iPhone models.
Stronger magnetization
When the list was first noted, a highlighted research has given the contradictory suggestion that the iPhone 12 models could possibly cause a drastic interference with the medical devices, largely due to the recent new feature of the MagSafe charger.
A research study that has been published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has found that the iPhone 12 Pro Max installed with the MagSafe technology could possibly cause magnetic interference and consequently has the potential to possibly provide inhibition in a life-saving therapy.
Apple’s MagSafe enables the device to charge fast wirelessly
While the researchers have acknowledged the scale of the study was small, the lead investigating professor has written during a press release that they have been surprised by the amount of strength incorporated in the Apple iPhone 12 models.
In general, a small magnet could also provide a hindrance in the timings of a pacemaker or could deactivate the life-saving functions of the defibrillator. And this recently conducted research has indicated the urgency to provide awareness to everyone that electronic smartphone devices containing magnets could interfere with implanted cardiac devices.
Researcher on pacemakers
A computer security consultant for Mnemonic, Marie Moe, who has also been embedded with a cardiac pacemaker, has conducted a small study and said that she is not worried. The Apple products are generally not emitting out a large number of magnetic fields, as compared to other heavy machinery, as big concert speakers and equipment used in welding should be a concern for any individual with a pacemaker that might be present in close proximity.
She also said that the strength of magnets found in the iPhone 12 models would only cause a cardia pacemaker to automatically shift into a safety mode, where the pacing signals towards the heart becomes continuous, even when it is not necessary, although the mode shifts back to normal once the magnetic device is removed within the nearby proximity.