iPods OK for Pacemaker Patients, Study Says

Heart patients who have both pacemakers and iPods can rest easy: The music devices don't affect the cardiac ones, reports Reuters. Two studies published last year suggested that iPods created electrical interference, but a new report by a team of FDA researchers concludes, “No interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested."

The researchers used a bag of saline as a stand-in for the human body and reported detecting "highly localized fields" around the four models of iPods under scrutiny. A measuring device placed with a centimeter of the iPod created a magnetic field too small to interfere with a pacemaker. (More product safety stories.)