STUDY DISCREDITS ‘WIND TURBINE SYNDROME’

Wind turbine sickness 'all in the mind': study

Lenore Taylor, March 15, 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald)

“…'Wind turbine sickness' is far more prevalent in communities where anti-wind farm lobbyists have been active and appears to be a psychological phenomenon caused by the suggestion that turbines make people sick, a study has found…63 per cent of Australia's 49 wind farms had never been the subject of any health complaint from nearby residents…[and] 68 per cent of the 120 complaints that have been made came from residents living near wind farms heavily targeted by the anti-wind farm lobby…

“Study author, Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University, [called 'wind turbine sickness' a 'communicated disease' spread by the claim that something was likely to make a person sick and] caused by the 'nocebo effect' – the opposite of the placebo effect – where the belief something would cause an illness created the perception of illness…”

“…[Research] found a much greater correlation between negative attitudes to wind turbines and reports of sickness than any 'objective measures of actual exposure'…[and studies suggest communicated diseases spread] much faster when the 'illness' had a name – such as Wind Turbine Syndrome, Vibro Acoustic Disease and Visceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance…

“…[The study cited] a recent New Zealand study in which some healthy volunteers were exposed to actual 'infrasound' – the sub-audible noise from wind farms claimed to cause health problems – and others to complete silence, which they had been told was 'infrasound'. In both cases the volunteers who had been told about the potential harmful effects of infrasound were more likely to report symptoms…”

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