Apple’s warning to keep the iPhone 12 away from heart devices due to electromagnetic interference was confirmed by US cardiologists in a new report this week (via NBC25 News).
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Apple’s iPhone 12 range includes a variety of magnets that help fit the phone on Apple’s MagSafe charging accessory to maximize charging, and Apple already advises users with implanted pacemakers and defibrillators around iPhone and ‘MagSafe’ – keep accessories at a safe distance from such devices.
To test the extent of the risk, cardiologist Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute Gurjit Singh and his colleagues recently conducted further tests to see how much influence the Apple products have.
According to dr. Singh, more than 300,000 people in the United States undergo one of these devices each year, and about one in four smartphones sold last year was an iPhone 12. The heart devices have switches that respond to an external magnet around the change operation of the device, enabling it to be controlled without operation.
Dr Singh and his colleagues were curious about possible interference with electrical devices and took an iPhone 12 Pro and brought it over a patient’s chest with an implantable defibrillator.
“When we brought the ‘iPhone’ near the patient’s chest, the defibrillator was deactivated, ‘said Dr. Singh said. “We saw at the external defibrillator programmer that the features of the device were suspended and remained. When we removed the phone from the patient’s chest, the defibrillator immediately returned to its normal function.”
“We were all stunned,” he said. “We assumed the magnet would be too weak in a phone to rotate the defibrillator’s magnetic switch.”
The findings are important, as dr. Singh is an expert in the use of devices such as implantable defibrillators that detect an irregular heartbeat and shock the heart back to a normal rhythm, and pacemakers that use electricity to make the heart beat. After the discovery, dr. Singh and his colleagues immediately reported their findings to the Heartbeat medical journal published January 4, 2021.
“We believe our findings have far-reaching implications for people who live with these devices on a daily basis, who will, without thinking, put their phone in their shirt pocket or top pocket or their coat, without knowing it’s their defibrillator. or to function as a pacemaker in a way that could be fatal. ‘
The remarks underscore medical evidence published in January, warning that ‘iPhone 12’ models and related ‘MagSafe’ devices could ‘impede life-saving treatment in a patient’ due to magnetic interference with implanted medical devices. Apple provides more information on this issue in the “Important Safety Information for iPhone” section in the iPhone User Guide.