View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/07/05/11/ipod.pacemaker.study Friday, May 11, 2007 10:15am Study: iPods interfere with... A new study presented by a 17-year-old Michigan high school student found that Apple's iPod portable media players can cause pacemakers -- small cardiac implants designed to monitor the hearts of people at risk of heart failure -- to misread heart pacing or fail entirely. The study which tested the effect of iPods on 100 patients with a mean age of 77 outfitted with pacemakers found that the portable players caused electrical interference 50 percent of the time when the iPod was held 2-inches from the patient's chest for 5-10 seconds, according to Reuters. The study examined iPods exclusively, and the results were presented to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday. iPods caused pacemaker interference when held 18-inches from the chest in some cases, and in one particular instance caused the pacemaker to stop functioning entirely.