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The "news" that iPods can interfere with pacemakers is all over the place, but I can't find anything about it on these forums. (It isn't a personal concern.)
Are there any knowledgeable people on this site who have any idea whether this is overblown? It appears that every story references the same one, along with the same experiment, and no one has investigated or even questioned the experiment's rigour, or if it isn't hype, how to block the stray signals.
If it's true, it isn't only iPods that would cause the problem, and this is mentioned in some of the stories. But of course the popularity of iPods singles them out, and now it's become fodder for the FUD machines.
No story goes beyond the so-called potential dangers. No story that I found cites a single example of anyone living in the day-to-day world being affected. It reminds me of the "sky-is-falling" stories when a computer lab creates a Mac virus that could only be spread to Macs that are carted into the lab.
We live at the bottom of an ocean of electrical/radio signals. Plenty of attention is paid to stopping radio interference, from cars and phones and computer speakers to the Hubble Space Telescope. If pacemakers are so susceptible, their manufacturers would have been sued out of existence decades ago. (But I have an aunt with a pacemaker who won't have a microwave oven in her home.)
How difficult could it be to shield pacemakers? None of the iPod horror stories I've seen address this, because I suspect pacemakers must be shielded at least as well as the ignition systems in '52 Studebakers. Otherwise, every Starbucks would be a killing field, and people would be dropping dead at airports bathed in a zillion signals, or even when opening garage doors.
What's the scoop?
Are there any knowledgeable people on this site who have any idea whether this is overblown? It appears that every story references the same one, along with the same experiment, and no one has investigated or even questioned the experiment's rigour, or if it isn't hype, how to block the stray signals.
If it's true, it isn't only iPods that would cause the problem, and this is mentioned in some of the stories. But of course the popularity of iPods singles them out, and now it's become fodder for the FUD machines.
No story goes beyond the so-called potential dangers. No story that I found cites a single example of anyone living in the day-to-day world being affected. It reminds me of the "sky-is-falling" stories when a computer lab creates a Mac virus that could only be spread to Macs that are carted into the lab.
We live at the bottom of an ocean of electrical/radio signals. Plenty of attention is paid to stopping radio interference, from cars and phones and computer speakers to the Hubble Space Telescope. If pacemakers are so susceptible, their manufacturers would have been sued out of existence decades ago. (But I have an aunt with a pacemaker who won't have a microwave oven in her home.)
How difficult could it be to shield pacemakers? None of the iPod horror stories I've seen address this, because I suspect pacemakers must be shielded at least as well as the ignition systems in '52 Studebakers. Otherwise, every Starbucks would be a killing field, and people would be dropping dead at airports bathed in a zillion signals, or even when opening garage doors.
What's the scoop?