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>	We're creating some costume vests for an exhibit for young 
>children. We've been thinking about using a couple of magnets to 
>keep the front panels of the vests together (there are durability 
>issues involved with other types of closures we considered--Velcro, 
>snaps, buttons). Questions have been raised, however, about magnets 
>interfering with pacemakers. I've seen magnets used in a variety of 
>exhibits, so does anyone have any information on this?

We tried to research this question back in 2002 but weren't able to 
find a very definitive answer.  Here's what I said in reply to 
someone on the ASTC list at that time:

At 4:17 PM -0700 6/9/03, Allan Ayres wrote:
>The best thing I could find was a statement somewhere that 10 gauss 
>was the maximum field that anyone should be able to be exposed to 
>unwittingly.  I think I found that on a news site (cnn.com or some 
>such), so I have little confidence that that figure represents 
>anything more than someone's haphazard guess.
>
>Our approach has just been to make it plain that all the magnets on 
>the floor are in fact magnets (on the assumption that people who 
>need to avoid magnets will do so if they know about them), and to 
>take steps to shield the stronger ones.

Please let us all know if you find out anything definitive... I'm 
sure many of us would like to have a real answer to this question.


-- 
~~

Allan Ayres
Exhibit Developer
Lawrence Hall of Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-5200
[log in to unmask]
510-642-1254

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