Do induction hobs interfere with pacemakers?

That’s my concern too, Malcolm. In other Conversations we have heard of radio interference caused by LED lamps despite the fact that the latter are supposed to comply with standards.

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Duncan thanks for that link.

I may be guilty of quoting it selectively but it does include the text “according to the World Health Authority, there is no compelling evidence of medium frequency magnetic fields having long term effects on health”.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any, but if there are, they must be hard to discern (as the link between smoking and cancer used to be).

One of my motorcycling buddies unfortunately died from cancer several years ago. As a self-employed motor mechanic, he had been an early adopter of GSM mobile phones and it was speculated at the time that the radiation fields from mobiles might cause cancer (and thus might have called his illness and death). I don’t think it has ever been proved that this cannot be the case, but these days we seem to be content that any such risks are either small or non-existent. Hence most folk are content to use mobile phones, without worrying about these risks.

Cooking on a hob is an inherently dangerous activity – no matter how you heat the hob.

Given the specific potential risks to pacemaker users, I think the BHF advice on induction hobs is sound and it also good that Which? recognises the need to qualify their endorsement of these products.

I share Duncan’s concerns that we don’t know about manufacturing standards. When this Conversation was published I looked for peer reviewed scientific articles about the safety of induction hobs and found nothing. Checking again, I still find none.

As Derek points out, it’s very difficult to establish risks associated with new technologies. Despite considerable concern about the safety of mobile phones the biggest danger is probably distraction of users, especially when driving.

One of the weaknesses of standards is that they set minimum requirements and there is no incentive to exceed these. I don’t have an induction hob, but it would make sense to buy one that emitted less RF.

I stand by what I said, Malcolm. The Euro NCAP tests provide safety ratings for cars and a good rating can be used to advertise a safer product. If induction hobs had safety ratings one of the main criteria would be the amount of electromagnetic radiation emitted. Hopefully manufacturers would compete to produce models with better scores.

Of course the testing must be done under standard conditions, not like the fuel economy tests for cars where the manufacturers are allowed to tape up the doors and over-inflate the tyres. 🙁

There is a difference between safety standards, that give standards of safety that the relevant products must at least meet, and that cover many aspects of a products safety for example that must all be met, and a performance standard. Some – maybe many – products are covered by other standards as well as a safety standard. EMC deals with how products both respond to another product and how they affect another product, the objective being they do not inter-react in an unacceptable way. There is nothing to stop a manufacturer of an induction hob comparing the radiation emitted with the maximum allowed, if that is the point, providing measuring conditions are the same. That might allow a savvy customer to make a judgement, Whether a star rating, as NCAP, would help better, maybe. NCAP is underpinned, I believe, by minimum legal standards.

I certainly understand the issue of interaction between products, which greatly complicates matters. Pacemakers can be well screened but the attached leads can pick up RF, so it’s vital to minimise the RF emissions by induction hobs, microwave ovens, etc.

I’m not aware of any manufacturers that compare RF emissions with standards, whereas NCAP ratings are well used by some car manufacturers.

I have attended courses where everyone who attended received a certificate, without any indication of actual performance in tasks. In contrast – when I was teaching – students received marks for every piece of work and each year were provided with an official transcript showing their performance in each module. Graduates can use this information in addition to their degree classification to help get decent jobs. Which? gives ratings to guide subscribers towards choosing better products.

I have trawled a few websites and do not see any reference to induction hobs exceeding current standards for RF emissions. That does not give me much confidence.

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