The New Directive 2013/35/EU on Occupational Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields and Electrical Workersź Use of Cardiac Pacemakers

The aim of this paper was to investigate, the new directive 2013/35/EU on occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields and the electrical workers’ use of cardiac pacemakers (PMs). The directive includes minimum requirements for the protection of workers from risks to their health and safety. In addition there is information about medical implants, e.g., cardiac pacemakers and possible interference problems. In this paper we describe our earlier studies of PMs and analyze where it is possible to find such high electric or magnetic fields that the exposure can influence the PM. Based on experiments at Tampere University of Technology, the electric field under 400 kV power line may disturb a PM, when the electric field is below the low action level (10 kV/m). The risk of disturbances is not considered to be high, because only one of the several PMs showed a major disturbance.