Medical Doctors Underline Potential Risk of iPhone 12 Interference With Pacemakers

[DrV]

My understanding was that applying a magnet (the famous blue donut) didn’t turn the pacemaker off, but rather converted it to Asynchronous mode, so that it paced at a default rate (usually 80) and then resumed preprogrammed function once the battery was removed. I perform radiofrequency ablation procedures which are based on microwaves that could interfere with pacemaker function, and in the past all we needed to do was clear using the magnet with the patient’s cardiologist. But in the last couple of years we have been instructed to have the pacemaker rep come in and reprogram the device before and after the procedure, especially if it was a defibrillator device. None of the cardiologists have clearly explained what may have changed.
But in the meantime, keep the iPhone away from your chest, and don’t watch the food cook...

A lot has changed. But indeed the standard functionality is and most probably will be still for a very long time to switch into asynchronous mode (or stop defib depending on the device). This is needed in the ER.

The devices have become more and more sophisticated. Most probably you would be better off with a new device and a magnet without any reprogramming than with an older device. The manufacturers, however, want to play it as safe as possible, plus that reprogramming also generates some income.

The cardiologists do not explain the details, because all they have is what the manufacturers tell. And due to commercial reasons the manufacturers do not tell anything they do not need to tell due to regulations.

If we lived in an ideal world, there would be standard communication protocols between the devices and programmers. That would make life easier, safer and less expensive. But we do not live in an ideal world.

 

[NMBob]

What I said was completely in jest.

Me too, except for the part where they seem to keep "forgetting" to tell us about stuff like throttling the iPhones until they get sued.

 

[ericg301]

"your heart is beating wrong."

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Talked to a friend who is in the know. If the magnet is on the pacemaker, it will start pacing. Once the magnet is removed, it will go back to sensing and pacing if necessary. Is it a problem? It *could* cause an irregularity. It's rare, like they say, but could. That's how they apparently test the devices.

The other device, defibrillator, will deactivate for the duration of the presence of the magnet. ER's have magnets specifically for that reason. Remove the magnet, and it will function normally, or abnormally if that was why the magnet was used.

They kind of didn't make that clear. I had the impression that the iPhone can 'disable' those devices. Well, they do, for the duration of the presence of the magnet.

I was more geeked at the ability to stick your 12 on a file cabinet. Awesome!!!

So will putting a sheet of steel in the back of a case shield the user from the magnets? Hmm... And how thick would it have to be. Yikes... Will Apple now have to offer a service to remove the magnets of people's iPhones if they request it?

 

[ikramerica]

I just got the 12 for my wife and even the bare leather case sticks to stuff. Not a fan.

 

[bousozoku]

It's not as though the ElectroMagnetic radiation wasn't already a problem. If you have special equipment in you, you have to be aware of where you are and what you're doing.

 

[Xultar]

No amount of whataboutism is going to make this passable. I’m just a bit gobsmacked that inside a company like apple that is looking to take the wearables medical device corner that magnets near a pacemaker = bad slipped by. This seems like a huge oversight.

Men often put their phones in their breast pockets. I’m about to buy a jacket that has a phone pocket in the chest area. People have sling bags they use for phones that are worn across the font of the chest. And well I’m not afraid to say that I put my phone in my chest area while walking my dogs cuz I don’t have pockets or carry a bag on walks.

I just don’t get how magsafe in this initial form made it to market.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

It's not as though the ElectroMagnetic radiation wasn't already a problem. If you have special equipment in you, you have to be aware of where you are and what you're doing.

That's why they warn you, and give you a card for traveling. Some people just forget...

On a tangent: I remember hearing a story about the building of the cyclotron at the uni I went too. A workman had a screwdriver stuck in his pocket, and forgot about it. He was 'in the tunnel', and they triggered the magnets, and the screwdriver, according to lore, and was lodged in his brain. (Like all good stories, it involved someone dying)

The head of the cyclotron totally denied the key point of the story. No one died. There was a worker that liked to play with tools when the magnets were turned on, and was potentially fired (according to rumor) because he was potentially damaging the equipment. But anyway...

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

No amount of whataboutism is going to make this passable. I’m just a bit gobsmacked that inside a company like apple that is looking to take the wearables medical device corner that magnets near a pacemaker = bad slipped by. This seems like a huge oversight.

Men often put their phones in their breast pockets. I’m about to buy a jacket that has a phone pocket in the chest area. People have sling bags they use for phones that are worn across the font of the chest. And well I’m not afraid to say that I put my phone in my chest area while walking my dogs cuz I don’t have pockets or carry a bag on walks.

I just don’t get how magsafe in this initial form made it to market.

There are so many things that are outside the purview of an engineer. Who would have thought that the device was strong enough to trigger devices? But the difference is it's the PATIENT'S responsibility to KNOW that they shouldn't be putting magnets near their implants! It's THEIR responsibility. If they don't remember they have one, well, getting paced is going to wake them up, isn't it.

It's not Apple's fault. Hell, you want to rage at liquor companies because people can be so sensitive to certain kinds of liquor they can go into dangerous heart rhythms? (Tequila causes a lot of arrhythmias in people, me included) Cigarettes cause lung cancer, so you going to shout at them too?

Apple isn't to blame in this circumstance. Look at all of the places people can buy powerful magnets. Look at all of the things that generate stronger magnetic fields.

*shrug*

It's not Apple's fault.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

My mum had a pacemaker fitted in 2019. Around that time she owned an original iPhone SE (2016), and even then she was told to keep it well away from her chest. This advice isn't new to the iPhone 12 at all, or at least in my mums case it wasn't.

She took the advice to heart (no pun intended) and since always kept her phone in a bag rather than a pocket, and even used the phone on loud speaker during phone calls (which you could argue is overkill but she likes to play it safe & who could blame her).

She now has an iPhone 12 mini & hasn't changed her handling of the device when compared to the SE. Point is, if you have a pacemaker fitted you're usually advised to keep any mobile device a safe distance from it and this was the case well before the iPhone 12.

That said, as someone whose mother has a pacemaker fitted I'm always grateful to see this issue highlighted. I just think it's worth pointing this out as a lot of people may mistakenly think this is unique to iPhone 12 models & it isn't. It's simply the case that the magnets are an additional thing to bear in mind, in a long list of reasons why you should keep any phone a safe distance from such devices.

Would using AirPods work ok for your mum, or would this cause any issues?

 

[SigEp265]

I could see a potential bedtime scenario that you'd need to be sure never happened.
And I'm 100% sure the following scenario has happened to hundreds if not thousands of people many times.

Laying in bed, tired, messing with your phone, and you drift off to sleep, your hands flop down and your phone lands on your chest.

Have to be sure you never ever put yourself in such a situation with one of these phones.
Must be 1000's of people every single night in bed, laying down doing this exact thing.

That’s when I end up dropping the phone on my face.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

That’s when I end up dropping the phone on my face.

Or iPad... OUCH!!!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I could see a potential bedtime scenario that you'd need to be sure never happened.
And I'm 100% sure the following scenario has happened to hundreds if not thousands of people many times.

Laying in bed, tired, messing with your phone, and you drift off to sleep, your hands flop down and your phone lands on your chest.

Have to be sure you never ever put yourself in such a situation with one of these phones.
Must be 1000's of people every single night in bed, laying down doing this exact thing.

I really think you are drastically over estimating the effect of the iPhone 12 Pro on people's health.

Thousands?

They would also have to have a major arrhythmia at the exact time, or sense that the pacer was over pacing their heart. I'm sure people who have triggered their pacemaker will know it's freaking out, and moving the iPhone would stop the auto-pace test mode.

Let's keep things sane?

Should iPads have to come with bumpers for all of the people who have been in bed with their iPads and had the iPad crash into their face? I'm sure it happens a lot more often with the iPad, and those suckers HURT!!!😩

 

[SteveJUAE]

It does not matter how you carve this up the bottom line is Apple has increased the health risk on a popular product and that is not responsible or acceptable practice.

 

[goobot]

No amount of whataboutism is going to make this passable. I’m just a bit gobsmacked that inside a company like apple that is looking to take the wearables medical device corner that magnets near a pacemaker = bad slipped by. This seems like a huge oversight.

Men often put their phones in their breast pockets. I’m about to buy a jacket that has a phone pocket in the chest area. People have sling bags they use for phones that are worn across the font of the chest. And well I’m not afraid to say that I put my phone in my chest area while walking my dogs cuz I don’t have pockets or carry a bag on walks.

I just don’t get how magsafe in this initial form made it to market.

It made it to market cause Apple needed someway to sell the new iPhone as new and different other than selling a 5g device with no 5g service available and flat edges.

 

[bousozoku]

That's why they warn you, and give you a card for traveling. Some people just forget...

On a tangent: I remember hearing a story about the building of the cyclotron at the uni I went too. A workman had a screwdriver stuck in his pocket, and forgot about it. He was 'in the tunnel', and they triggered the magnets, and the screwdriver, according to lore, and was lodged in his brain. (Like all good stories, it involved someone dying)

The head of the cyclotron totally denied the key point of the story. No one died. There was a worker that liked to play with tools when the magnets were turned on, and was potentially fired (according to rumor) because he was potentially damaging the equipment. But anyway...

Of course.

I remember going into Burger King for the first time in the 1970s and they had a microwave oven. There were warning signs everywhere to not have it your way, if you had a pacemaker or other sensitive equipment.

Of course, now that I'm taking some time to work in retail, I understand that people can't be bothered to read signs and obviously, many people are too poor to pay attention.

 

[SFjohn]

So this would apply to any strong enough magnet?

Yes, absolutely.

 

[morphineseason]

I have to imagine this isn't sitting well with the higher ups who want to push the motto about Apple's products enriching lives. I suspect magsafe will quietly get dropped in the next year or two, just like 3D Touch did. It's one reason why I haven't even bought any magsafe accessories yet (other than it just not seeming like a very useful thing). I guess there's always the possibility that they can come up with some kind of hardware design that would stop the interference with pacemakers, but I'm not sure if it's really worth the extra R&D.

 

[travelsheep]

As a first step any cardiologist should advise the patient to adapt a diet that can arrest and reverse heart disease, in the likes of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. Dean Ornish. Heart disease must not exist, and if it exists, it must not progress.

As a second step they should address this iPhone magnet issue.

 

[Shirasaki]

To anyone who downplays the issue, wait until you get a pacemaker for whatever reason and remember you downplayed it years ago.

I’m not cursing people to have heart problems. I’m saying for quite a few people, unless their own backyard is on fire, they will just argue someone else’s fire incident does not exist.

 

[Ethosik]

please Apple get rid of that magnet. It is not important how fast we charge wirelessly as long as you provide one day battery life. Most of us charge overnight. My car has a (slow) charging mat, my office has one, the phone is being charged all the time.

People were yelling at Apple that "Android devices have wireless charging"

 

[kerr]

As suspected, MagSafe for iPhone is something no one asked for and something no one needs. It’s garbage. Are we supposed to forget about wireless charging because Apple failed with the AirPower mat?

 

[sfmthd]

there is so much misinformation, or partial information out here on this topic. there are some posts in this thread which help, and many which repeat false assumptions or keep asking questions which imply false assumptions.

i’m not a doctor, but i have an ICD, and have received “therapy” (a powerful and very unpleasant defibrillating shock) from it a dozen or so times over a period of a few years.

some facts:

1) the response to a strong, local magnetic field of these devices is by design. as noted by the doctor a page or so back, it is a feature designed in to allow a very crude level of universal control. ANY suitably strong magnet held close enough will do it. like many ICD patients, i have several such magnets purchased for the purpose.
2) what exactly the device does in the presence of this field is selectable for most modern devices. they’re all slightly different. as an example, mine was originally programmed to pace my heart at a certain rate and NOT deliver any other therapy, like a major defibrillating shock. that’s a fairly typical configuration for an ICD, i believe, but i had a discussion with my doctor (cardiac electrophysiologist) about changing it to not pace, and not deliver a shock, for reasons which are too obscure to discuss here. it is literally a drop down setting on the programming device, which uses RF, not magnetism, to reprogram the ICD.
3) the most common setting for a pacemaker in the presence of a strong magnet seems to be to switch to asynchronous pacing - not to just shut off completely.
4) again, all these devices vary, and many patients are different, but for my st jude (now abbot) ICD, the magnet has to be very, very close. like, physically in contact with my skin and in pretty much the exact spot. my
phone (12 pro max currently) has never triggered it. the pockets on my suit jackets are not in the right spot for it to do so, once we all go back to going to work and wearing suits...

so, in the case of my device, here is the only
scenario in which this “issue” would be an issue: my heart is in a dangerous abnornal
rhythm (ventricular tachycardia) and i require a potentially lifesaving shock (defibrillation) to reboot the heart rhythm. i pass out (perhaps due to said arrhythmia!) and my phone falls onto my chest in exactly the spot needed to switch the ICD into “do not shock” mode and stays there while i lie completely still until i’m dead. all other scenarios, in which i am conscious, simply won’t occur because for me it’s quite obvious when a magnet is in exactly the right spot and the ICD has switched into “do not shock mode.”

now, speculating: a higher risk would be for those who have a pacemaker, not an ICD, and the switching of the pacemaker into asynchronous mode potentially generates other arrhythmia risks, which the device is not capable of resolving with the magnet in place and the owner is not aware of the change. not everyone can feel their device doing something “different” and there are certainly many kinds of harmful heart rhythm problems. still speculating: the VERY highest risk would be if there are in fact pacemakers which are currently programmed to completely shut off in the presence of a magnetic field, implanted in patients who are completely dependent on pacing. this would be an insanely risky setting in my opinion, given that ANY strong enough magnetic field would trigger it. i have never heard of such a thing: remember that this response to magnetism is by design, not because the devices are being “interfered” with.

again, those last two points are speculation, hopefully there’s an EP in the room who can add some detail.

 

[jonnysods]

I would have thought this would have always been a no no for electronics near the old ticker.

 

[MBHockey]

So it is important to differentiate between danger to a patient that is pacer dependent versus a patient who has a pacemaker as backup for an intermittent condition (note: I am a doctor). For instance if you are constantly pacer dependent (i.e. for whatever reason your sinus node isn't doing a proper job establishing your heart rate/rhythm) then this could be deadly (depending on what your non-paced escape rhythm is). Versus for instance if once in a blue moon your heart rate becomes dangerously slow and you faint, then it's not going to cause a problem (given the probability of you needing the pacer backup at the exact moment you place your iPhone 12 on your chest).

Modern pacemakers (or electronics in general) are remarkably resistant to EMI (particularly since most pacemakers now are internet connected, they certainly can handle cellular/wifi signals nearby since they themselves generate wifi or BT). The magnet is a specific off-switch (that's a feature, like when I want to take an EKG of a patient with a pacemaker and want to see the underlying heart itself, I put a ring shaped magnet (we leave them stuck on the side of the EKG cart) so the pacemaker shuts off, so we can see, then after the procedure I remove the magnet. i make the same calculation of risk when I place the order for the EKG as to whether you can safely deactivate the pacer for a little while to do the EKG (some patients yes, some no)

This is inaccurate (I'm a doctor)

Let's get some things out of the way here.

AICD = defibrillator + pacemaker

You can have an AICD or just a pacemaker

If you have an AICD, a magnet simply turns it into a pacemaker and paces at a set rate (turns off defib function)

If you have just a pacemaker, a magnet simply turns it back to its default settings and makes it pace at a set rate (turns off sensing mechanism)

Saying it 'can be potentially deadly' is an exaggeration. The reason that it could be dangerous temporarily, and why patients with pacemakers/AICDs are taught to stay away from magnets, is because if you go into a rhythm that requires defibrillation at the exact moment you have a magnet close to your chest, the defibrillation function won't work, and yes you could die from that. This is fringe scenario and nothing new to AICD patients. Presumably if you went into a shockable rhythm at the exact moment you were holding your iPhone 12 to your chest you would drop the phone and the AICD would then start working again and fire.

It is not as if putting a magnet to your chest with an AICD or pacemaker will cause your heart to stop and you drop dead