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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Portable media players such as iPods are unlikely to interfere with heart pacemakers, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher reported on Thursday.

His tests of a variety of iPods showed they did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices.

FDA researcher Howard Bassen and colleagues set up a complex experiment using a saline-filled bag to simulate the human body and a coil sensor designed to pick up electromagnetic emissions.

They measured the magnetic fields produced by four different iPod models: a fourth-generation iPod and an iPod with video, and an iPod nano and an iPod shuffle. They also restricted the voltages delivered to the inside of the pacemaker by the magnetic fields from the iPods.

All their measurements indicated the iPods could not affect cardiac pacemakers, they reported in the periodical BioMedical Engineering OnLine.

“We measured magnetic field emissions with a 3-coil sensor

placed in the limits of 1 cm (half an inch) of the surface of the player. Highly localized fields were observed (only existing in a one square cm area),” they wrote.

“Based upon the body the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we pure,” they concluded.

Two reports had suggested otherwise. Last year cardiologists operated an iPod during a patient’s examination, and reported in the journal spirit Rhythm that they had seen interference with the pacemaker.