Today’s post, the second of three installments, reviews the major research findings linking low-frequency noise and infrasound from industrial wind turbines with effects on health and quality of life.[1]
By Jerry Punch, PhD, and Richard James, INCE, BME
Evidence that industrial wind turbines (IWTs) negatively impact human health is vast and growing. Although that evidence acknowledges that the exact exposures needed to impact health and the percentage of the affected population are still unknown, there is indisputable evidence that adverse health effects (AHEs) occur for a nontrivial percentage of exposed populations. Here, we give an overview of that evidence.[2]
Wind turbine noise is not known to cause hearing loss. Interestingly, though, individuals who have hearing disorders may be more susceptible than persons with normal hearing to AHEs from wind turbine noise, and people who are deaf can suffer the same ill effects as those who have normal hearing when exposed to wind turbine noise. The latter finding supports the view that infrasound, not just the audible whooshing, low-frequency noise emitted from wind turbines, is the cause of many of the health complaints.
The anecdotal evidence, documented on internet blogs, innewspaper articles, in expert testimony in legal proceedings, and recently in the documentary movies Windfall and Wind Rush, is compelling and illustrative of the similarity in symptoms. These adverse symptoms appear when people are exposed to operating wind turbines, and disappear when the turbines stop operating. These observations resemble single-subject research experiments, in which individuals serve as their own controls while being subjected to alternating conditions or treatments. Dr. Carl Phillips, noted epidemiologist, describes the use of adverse event reporting as a first step in establishing the existence, prevalence, and spread of a variety of health conditions, as well as adverse reactions to such agents as medications and environmental pollutants.
Reports that many families abandon their homes after IWTs begin operation make the anecdotal evidence particularly compelling.
Studies conducted in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, where residents have many decades of experience with IWTs, collectively indicate thatwind turbine noise differs from and is more annoying than other sources of noise, including community, transportation, and industrial sources.
Continue reading The Negative Health Impact of Noise from Industrial Wind Turbines: The Evidence
Mothers Against Wind Turbines Inc. 