Apple's
warning to keep the iPhone 12 away from cardiac devices due to electromagnetic interference was further underlined by U.S. cardiologists this week in a new medical journal report (
via NBC25 News).
Apple's iPhone 12 series includes an array of magnets that help align the phone on Apple's MagSafe charging accessory to maximize charging, and Apple
already advises users with implanted pacemakers and defibrillators to keep iPhone and MagSafe accessories a safe distance away from such devices.
To test the extent of the risk, Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute cardiologist Gurjit Singh and his colleagues recently carried out further testing to see just how much of an influence the Apple products have.
According to the report, more than 300,000 people in the U.S. undergo surgery to implant one of these devices each year, and around one in four smartphones sold last year was an iPhone 12. The cardiac devices have switches which respond to an external magnet to change how the device functions, which allows them to be controlled without the requirement of surgery.
Curious about potential interference with electrical devices, Dr Sign and his colleagues took an iPhone 12 Pro and passed it over the chest of a patient with an implantable defibrillator.
The findings are significant, since Dr Singh 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. Following the discovery, Dr Singh and his colleagues immediately submitted a report of their findings to the
HeartRhythm medical journal that was published on January 4, 2021.
The findings add to evidence
published in January which cautioned that iPhone 12 models and related MagSafe devices can "potentially inhibit lifesaving therapy in a patient" due to magnetic interference with implanted medical devices. Apple provides more information about this issue in the "
Important safety information for iPhone" section of the iPhone User Guide.
Article Link:
New Medical Report Underlines Potential Risk of iPhone 12 Interference With Pacemakers