Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The new I phone 12 can screw up pacemakers

https://nbc25news.com/news/local/he...-deactivates-implantable-cardiac-devices

Henry Ford cardiologists find iPhone 12 magnet deactivates implantable cardiac devices
by Mid-Michigan Now NewsroomThursday, February 4th 2021

DETROIT, Mich. - One of the newest features of the Apple iPhone 12 series of mobile devices is a strong magnet that helps align the phone on Apple’s MagSafe accessory to maximize charging – a feature that raised the curiosity of Henry Ford Heart & Vascular Institute cardiologist Gurjit Singh, M.D., and his colleagues.

Dr. Singh is an expert in cardiac electrophysiology, a specialty which deals with various electrical and rhythm disorders. He is an expert in the use of devices such as implantable defibrillators that detect an irregular heartbeat and shock the heart back into a normal rhythm, and pacemakers that use electricity to keep the heart beating. Combined, more than 300,000 people in the United States undergo surgery to implant one of these devices each year. Additionally, approximately one in four cell phones sold last year was an iPhone 12.

These cardiac devices have switches which respond to an external magnet to change how the device functions. For a defibrillator, a magnet can be used to turn the device off. For a pacemaker, a strong magnet can make the device deliver electrical impulses that cause the heart to beat out of sync, which can bring about a potentially lethal condition called ventricular fibrillation.

“Obviously, we can’t perform surgery every time we need to control one of these devices, which is why they are engineered to allow us to use strong magnets over the chest to control their function,” said Dr. Singh. “So, we began to wonder if the magnet in the iPhone 12 would affect the safe operation of these devices.”

In order to find out if their suspicions were true, Dr. Singh and his colleagues took an iPhone 12 Pro and passed it over the chest of a patient with an implantable defibrillator.

“When we brought the iPhone close to the patient’s chest the defibrillator was deactivated,” said Dr. Singh. “We saw on the external defibrillator programmer that the functions of the device were suspended and remained suspended. When we took the phone away from the patient’s chest, the defibrillator immediately returned to its normal function.”

“We were all stunned,” he said. “We had assumed that the magnet would be too weak in a phone to trip the defibrillator’s magnetic switch. “

Alarmed by their discovery, Dr. Singh and his Henry Ford colleagues immediately drafted a manuscript about their findings and submitted it to the medical journal HeartRhythm, which was published on January 4, 2021.

“We believe our findings have profound implications on a large scale for the people who live daily with these devices, who without thinking, will place their phone in their shirt pocket or upper pocket or their coat – not knowing that it can cause their defibrillator or pacemaker to function in a way that could potentially be lethal.”

No country for old men.....

Yeah but the rest of us get better wireless charging.

Even with an Android phone they tell you to use the phone with your right hand/ear. I got my ICD in early December and it has been a pain trying to remember to keep it away from my left side.

"That doesn't matter. We need 5G!!!!!"

I just sent that to a friend. He and his wife both have pacemakers. They'll never own a phone that expensive but their son uses high tech phones extensively in his business and could well have one. They'd want to be sure to never use his phone if he does.

I have some Milt Sparks holsters with the neodymium magnet snaps that came with a full page warning about keeping them away from electronic devices, people with pacemakers, and magnetic media such as the strips on credit cards. Years later, my electronic devices and credit cards have continued to work as intended, and I have not had anyone near me fall down from a heart attack.

I had an iPhone 5 until recently. I also had an electronic card to open the security gates at the local airport. The card would quit working after a short period of time. The airport director told me to not put it in my pocket with my iPhone. The phone would kill the card. Unintended consequences.

I wonder...I have an Android phone and usually carry it in my shirt pocket. On occasions, I've dropped my debit card in there. I've had to replace the card a couple times because it wouldn't always read in stores. Now I wonder if the phone isn't screwing it up.