Individuals with pacemakers need to avoid electromagnetic fields. That includes cell phones, MRIs, zappers, TENS units, and Rife devices. An Advanced BioPhoton Analyzer can generate the same effect as a Rife device with no electromagnetic field and no voltage.
In a High-Tech World, Pacemaker Risks Rise
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
New York Times, April 20, 2004
As high-tech gadgets and devices proliferate, people who use pacemakers are finding themselves in a world that is increasingly difficult to navigate.
Once concentrated in the workplace, devices that can disrupt pacemaker function are now much harder to avoid. Metal detectors hidden in store entrances and exits, for example, can be impossible to spot. Magnetic resonance imaging techniques, often considered a danger to those with pacemakers or implanted defibrillators, have become a common diagnostic procedure.
But sometimes, doctors have found, the culprit can even be something that appears relatively innocuous. In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, three Swiss doctors reported the case of a 52-year-old man with a pacemaker who was experiencing sporadic bouts of dizziness.
The doctors were puzzled. But a detailed history revealed that the patient had been using a little-known alternative medicine device called a Zapper, which generated electrical impulses when held in both hands. Each time the patient tried to use it, the doctors said, his pacemaker would stop working and start up again only when the man fainted and dropped the device.
“This went on for several months,” said Dr. Osmund Bertel, a cardiologist at Triemli Hospital in Zurich and one of the authors of the letter. “The modern environment is full of these things that people don’t realize can interfere with their pacemakers. But it’s important to be aware of them.”
Another little-known menace to people with pacemakers, some doctors say, is a popular treatment for pain relief called PENS, or percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. Often used for lower back pain, the treatment, which is akin to acupuncture with electric current, has been shown to affect some pacemakers, said Dr. Sergio Pinski, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Fla.
“Pretty much any device that delivers current to the body has the potential to cause problems,” Dr. Pinski said.
More than two million Americans have permanent implanted pacemakers. Some of the more traditional threats to the devices, experts say, can be safe if precautions are followed. Cellphones, for example, should not be carried in the breast pocket or held to the ear closest to the pacemaker.