Do cellular phones interfere with pacemakers?
The answer to this question depends on the type of cellular phone being used. Today’s pacemakers are engineered to withstand interference from analog cellular phones. However, in some cases, digital cellular phones may interfere with pacemakers. According to the American Heart Association, a group of cellular phone companies is studying the newer cellular phones with new frequency and their effect on pacemakers.
Recently published studies performed on patients at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, as well as laboratory studies in the U.S. and Canada, have shown that when some cellular phones are placed very close to implanted cardiac pacemakers, interference with the pacemaker’s normal delivery of pulses can occur. Although FDA is not aware of any actual incidents in which cellular phones have caused people’s pacemakers to malfunction, the agency is concerned about this possibility, and is conducting its own laboratory studies. So far, FDA’s results agree with those of the other preliminary studies.
