Wind Turbine Syndrome

[RyanX]

While on facebook today, somebody posted an article about "Wind Turbine Syndrome". Curious, I decided to search around to see what I could find out about this. I couldn't find anything specific on the forum here about it, hence the new thread. After taking a vacation that involved traveling through many midwestern states, it's obvious that these wind installations are gaining in number in a lot of places. Although dubbed as clean/renewable energy, it seems that these wind turbines have a marked negative impact on the health of the people an animals that surround them. I'll post a couple of the articles I found below for reference sake.

_http://www.savewesternny.org/docs/pierpont_testimony.html

Wind Turbine Syndrome

Testimony before the New York State Legislature Energy Committee

March 7, 2006

Nina Pierpont, MD, PhD

MD, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1991
PhD, Population Biology, Princeton University, 1985
BA, Biology, Yale University, 1977
Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics

www.ninapierpont.com

I am here to talk to you today as a physician-scientist about a clinical phenomenon called Wind Turbine Syndrome. This is relevant to today’s hearing because it critically affects implementation of the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) in terms of the siting of industrial wind turbines. Current siting practices (which are solely industry-driven) disregard public health. The supervision of the legislature—of this committee—is needed to create siting standards to protect the citizenry, all the citizenry, including citizens who are rural, old, ill, impaired, and very young.

Federal agencies are trying to put the brakes on willy-nilly wind turbine construction, citing, for instance, wildlife issues. The GAO (Government Accountability Office) last fall told US Fish and Wildlife to get involved. The National Academy of Sciences in April 2005 initiated a 20-month study on environmental impacts whose final report is due in December this year. There also needs to be a focus on human health, and the state needs to step up to the plate in terms of regulation.

I live in Franklin County, the poorest in NY State. Two years ago, after passage of the RPS, wind energy companies showed up there in force, as they have in all the poor, rural parts of the state. They showed up with no controls whatsoever, unregulated by either the legislature or NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research & Development Authority). Our town boards, made up of farmers, teachers, corrections officers, etc., were told, “You guys handle this,” by our state representatives. I got involved as a responsible citizen and physician. Over the last 1½ years I have done a lot of reading, research, and interviews. I have spoken at town board meetings and before the St. Lawrence County Legislature, and published alone or with my husband (a retired university professor) numerous editorials and letters to the editor in local newspapers. My focus has been health issues and to some degree wildlife, in which I also have credentials in my PhD.

I get a lot of slander and abuse from the wind salesmen. Their favorites are saying that my abundantly referenced and footnoted articles, like the one before you (note: a separate handout), have “no evidence,” or that I think wind turbines cause mad cow disease. The latter smear came from a town meeting in Ellenburg, NY, in October 2004, when I presented information culled from the medical literature on possible effects of low frequency noise. This included a paper out of the UK linking low frequency sound to prion diseases by a complex and highly speculative mechanism. I was very clear how speculative it was, but apparently the concept of something being speculative was over their heads, including over the heads of wind salesmen in the room.



Dr. Pierpont on Wind Turbine Syndrome March 7, 2006 Page 2

I am not for or against the RPS. I’m an intelligent person and I support renewable energy. I am not here to shoot down wind energy, which probably has its place, though that place is not near people’s homes or near schools, hospitals, or other locations where people have to sleep or learn.

I would like to stress that these are not “farms.” One doesn’t “farm” wind any more than one “farms” water in a hydroelectric dam or “farms” neutrons in an atomic plant. These are large, industrial installations. They make large-scale, industrial noise. “Jet engines” is the most common description I hear in surveying people—a jet engine that doesn’t go away and which you can’t get used to.

A syndrome in medicine is a constellation of symptoms and findings which is consistent from person to person. Defining a syndrome is the first step in investigating any new disease. The symptom cluster has to make sense in terms of pathophysiology—there has to be a plausible mechanism in terms of how the body and brain work. Defining a syndrome, and making that knowledge available to the medical community, lets other doctors go from scratching their heads over weird presentations of illness which are coming through their offices, to being able to validate and name what is going on and start to do something about it. It also opens the door to epidemiologic studies to define prevalence and risk factors, which will guide prevention and treatment.

Describing and documenting symptoms is the province of physicians. So is research on the causes of diseases. Deciding whether people have significant symptoms is not within the expertise of engineers or specialists in acoustics, even when the symptoms appear to be caused by noise. We physicians appreciate the noise data which engineers provide, but this data has nothing to do with whether people have symptoms or not. One British acoustics expert, Dr. Geoff Leventhall, is especially outrageous in this regard, insisting that people “can’t” have symptoms because turbines “don’t,” he says, produce low frequency noise. His fallback, for which he is well paid by the industry, is that people make up their complaints. But he’s not trained to distinguish whether people are making up their complaints, or to know about the range of physical, psychiatric, and neurological symptoms people might have. A related point: the hallmark of a good doctor is one who takes symptoms seriously and pursues them until they are understood (and ameliorated). This includes symptoms related to the brain, our most complex organ—symptoms which may be neurologic, psychiatric, or physical.

Three doctors that I know of are studying the Wind Turbine Syndrome: myself, one in England, and one in Australia. We note the same sets of symptoms. The symptoms start when local turbines go into operation and resolve when the turbines are off or when the person is out of the area. The symptoms include:

1) Sleep problems: noise or physical sensations of pulsation or pressure make it hard to go to sleep and cause frequent awakening.
2) Headaches which are increased in frequency or severity.
3) Dizziness, unsteadiness, and nausea.
4) Exhaustion, anxiety, anger, irritability, and depression.
5) Problems with concentration and learning.
6) Tinnitus (ringing in the ears).

Not everyone near turbines has these symptoms. This does not mean people are making them up; it means there are differences among people in susceptibility. These differences are known as risk factors. Defining risk factors and the proportion of people who get symptoms is the role of epidemiologic studies. These studies are under way. Chronic sleep disturbance is the most common symptom. Exhaustion, mood problems, and problems with concentration and learning are natural outcomes of poor sleep.



Dr. Pierpont on Wind Turbine Syndrome March 7, 2006 Page 3

Sensitivity to low frequency vibration is a risk factor. Contrary to assertions of the wind industry, some people feel disturbing amounts of vibration or pulsation from wind turbines, and can count in their bodies, especially their chests, the beats of the blades passing the towers, even when they can’t hear or see them. Sensitivity to low frequency vibration in the body or ears is highly variable in people, and hence poorly understood and the subject of much debate.

Another risk factor is a preexisting migraine disorder. Migraine is not just a bad headache; it’s a complex neurologic phenomenon which affects the visual, hearing, and balance systems, and can even affect motor control and consciousness itself. Many people with migraine disorder have increased sensitivity to noise and to motion—they get carsick as youngsters, and seasick, and very sick on carnival rides. Migraine-associated vertigo (which is the spinning type of dizziness, often with nausea) is a described medical entity. Migraine occurs in 12% of Americans. It is a common, familial, inherited condition.

To keep our balance and feel steady in space, we use three types of input: from our eyes (seeing where we are in space), from stretch receptors in joints and muscles, and from balance organs in the inner ear. At least two of these systems have to be working, and agreeing, to maintain balance. If the systems don’t agree, as in seasickness or vertigo, one feels both ill and unsteady. Wind turbines impinge on this system in two ways: by the visual disturbance of the moving blades and shadows, and by noise or vibration impacting the inner ear.

Other candidate risk factors for susceptibility to Wind Turbine Syndrome are age-related changes in the inner ear. Five percent (5%) of otherwise healthy people from age 57 to 91 experience dizziness, and 24% experience tinnitus or ringing. Damage to the ears or hearing from other causes, such as noise exposure, is also a potential risk factor. Inner ear organs are closely linked, by proven neurological connections, to the brain systems which control mood, anxiety, and one’s sense of well-being. Disturbing the inner ear disturbs mood, not because a person is a whiner or doesn’t like turbines, but because of neurology.

Data from a number of studies and individual cases document that in rolling terrain, disturbing symptoms of the Wind Turbine Syndrome occur up to 1.2 miles from the closest turbine. In long Appalachian valleys, with turbines on ridge-tops, disturbing symptoms occur up to 1.5 miles away. In New Zealand, which is more mountainous, disturbing symptoms occur up to 1.9 miles away. In New York State, with its mixed terrain, I recommend a setback of 1.5 miles (8000 ft.) between all industrial wind turbines and people’s homes or schools, hospitals, or similar institutions. This setback should be imposed immediately for turbines not yet built. The legislature might want to set up a panel of clinicians to review the data and medical information I refer to here, but until this happens, and as research continues, a moratorium on all wind turbine construction within 1.5 miles of homes would be appropriate.

To recapitulate, there is in fact a consistent cluster of symptoms, the Wind Turbine Syndrome, which occurs in a significant number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines. There are specific risks factors for this syndrome, and people with these risk factors include a substantial portion of the population. A setback of 1.5 miles from homes, schools, hospitals, and similar institutions will probably be adequate, in most NY State terrain, to protect people from the adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines.

Then there's a book titled Wind Turbine Syndrome by the same author as the article above.

_http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/book.html

Wind energy is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. It’s billed as “clean,
green, renewable.”

In this engagingly written, peer-reviewed report by a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine trained M.D. and Princeton (Population Biology) Ph.D., we discover wind energy’s dirty little secret. Many people living within 2 km (1.25 miles) of these spinning giants get sick. So sick that they often abandon (as in, lock the door and leave) their homes. Nobody wants to buy their acoustically toxic homes. The “lucky ones” get quietly bought out by the wind developers—who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that Wind Turbine Syndrome exists. (And yet the wind developers thoughtfully include a confidentiality clause in the sales agreement, forbidding their victim from discussing the matter further.)

Dr. Nina Pierpont explains in simple, layman’s terms how turbine infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN) create the seemingly incongruous constellation of symptoms the Book has christened Wind Turbine Syndrome. (Incongruous only to the non-clinician who does not understand Mother Nature’s organs of balance, motion, and position sense.) For the high level clinician, Pierpont provides a parallel chapter written in sophisticated medical language and format, complete with voluminous, up-to-date clinical and scientific references.

The core of the book is 66 pages of ingeniously laid out tables wherein the author presents her clinical Case Histories. The hard data.

Since publishing the book in late 2009, Pierpont has heard from people around the world who are discovering that Wind Turbine Syndrome is not confined to living in the shadow of industrial wind turbines. It turns out people suffer identical symptoms from living close to natural gas compressor stations, industrial sewage pumping stations, and other power plants. In each case, low frequency noise and infrasound appear to be the chief disease-causing culprit—basically, Wind Turbine Syndrome without the turbines.

Here's a video that discusses some of the adverse health effects of wind farms too: _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpuk4WlqeQg

The thing is though, low-frequency noise isn't just limited to wind farms. Any city where there is industry is going to have this to some degree, I would think. So I'm not sure if it's useful to focus exclusively on wind farms, but on a whole array of installations that produce low-frequency noise. Still, I'm sure this will burst the bubble of a lot of environmentalists who'd like to see the whole landscape dotted with these "clean, renewable energy" wind turbines.

 

[paralleloscope]

Sad to see one more possible debilitating vector, interesting that infrasound pops up again.

Denmark is one of the big Windturbine nations with our flat lands and the industry heavy weight Vestas. Aalborg university has one of the only laboratories for studying the full range of low frequency sound, and researchers here found that DELTA the state agency for electronics, light and acoustics were (no suprise) obfuscating industry controlled recordings of wind turbines by denying recordings and filtering noise below 20 Hz.

Some quotes:

The audible portion of the whoosh is around 300 Hz, which can easily penetrate walls of homes and other buildings. In addition, the rotating blades create energy at frequencies as low as 1–2 Hz (the blade-passage frequency), with overtones of up to about 20 Hz. Although some of this low-frequency energy is audible to some people with sensitive hearing, the energy is mostly vibratory to people who react negatively to it

Contrary to the claims of the industry, there is a growing body of peer-reviewed research
substantiating these health claims. This report attempts to catalogue the most recent.
[...]
There is already ample scientific evidence that noise, including low frequency noise, is a cause of
sleep disturbance in humans. The evidence also suggests that long term exposure normally leads
to serious health problems.
[...]
Reinforcing this body of knowledge is the research that has been conducted on animals. Long term
studies by European biologists indicate that habitat disturbance and abandonment takes place
around wind turbine developments. Further research on animals indicates that basic survival
functions such as hunting, self protection and reproduction are interrupted by low frequency noise
exposure.
[...]
Low frequency noise from a wind turbine is generally not easily perceived beyond ½ mile.
However, if a turbine is subject to aerodynamic modulation because of shear caused by terrain
(mountains, trees, buildings) or different wind conditions through the rotor plane, turbine noise may
be heard at greater distances”.
[...]
There is growing evidence that animals are affected even more severely than humans by the low
frequency noise and vibrations from industrial wind turbines.

Scientists have concluded that wind turbine developments placed near important wildlife areas
have a long term, irreversible destructive effect upon these habitats. The effect is cumulative, and
increases the longer the wind turbines remain in place.
[...]
Laboratory studies upon animals have been reviewed with quite chilling results, as it clear that
deformities, damage and impairment occur to the subjects with regularity
[...]
the reduction of egg laying by domestic poultry; injury and loss involving livestock; goats with reduced milk production; pigs with excessive
hormonal secretion as well as water and sodium retention; sheep and lambs with increased heart
rates, respiratory changes and reduction in feeding.

_http://www.scribd.com/doc/26218927/Adverse-Health-Effects-of-Wts-3-0-1

Allthough the below talks of grosser schock wawes, the mode of intrusion applies I think.

Analysts contend that infrasound is composed of a very broad band of pitches. These tones of immense pressure and duration "accommodate" themselves when encountering resonant cavities. All such resonant cavities are "found and destroyed" when the proper pressure waves flow into their resonances. Rooms, halls, alleys, spaces among buildings, courtyard areas, cellars, subways, sewer chambers; all these burst open into flying fragments when infrasonic waves flood them. Infrasound is the cruel tonal giant, tearing open whatever it finds in its path.

Infrasonic shocks produce characteristic pressure effects on structures and organisms alike. The sensation flattens the body. It is as if one were struck with a solid invisible wall from which there is no escape. There are physiological effects as well. Anxiety, fear, extreme emotional distress, and mental incapacitation are all part of the unpleasant phenomenon. Notable among human exposures to quake-correlated infrasound is the precursory nausea which many report. This strong sensation leaves its more sensitive victims helpless.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/134182-Infrasound-There-is-geometry-in-the-humming-of-the-strings-there-is-music-in-the-spacing-of-the-spheres-

 

[Ca.]

Thanks RyanX, i always thought they were suppose to be a better idea, but kept hearing stories of birds impacting the tribune blades, especially migratory flocks.

Interesting is the manufactures, a few are also in the arms industry as well, and that says it all, for the lack of concern to any side effects to anyone that live near them.

Profit promotes greed, greed promotes corruption, corruption promotes lobbyest to promote reckless ideas, at the expanse of the population.

Hey but it's green, green for the fat cats on wall street.

Wind Turbine Stocks
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/wind-turbine-stocks/265

The New Renewable Bull Market 2008

Blackstone, one of the largest U.S. private equity firms, recently announced it's lobbing over $1.5 billion at a German offshore wind farm.

The Largest Wind Turbine Companies

First, let me clarify that the turbines used for offshore wind are of different quality and cost than those used onshore. Right now, General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) are the two most viable candidates in the offshore business. But a few analysts have claimed that Siemens is the only company currently capable of accepting large new orders for offshore turbines—another indication of a looming, if not present, wind turbine supply crunch.

By nearly all estimates, Danish wind company Vestas (CPH: VWS) (Pink: VWDRY) holds the largest market share with about 23%. In fact, the company produced enough turbines in 2007 to power about 4.5 million homes, and has already made deliveries of wind turbines capable of producing 4.5 GW of power to 28 countries.

Vestas has been able to boost its earnings at a terrific pace, rising from 201 million euros in 2006 to 443 million euros in 2007—a 120% increase!

I guess the prof is in the pudding.

Wind turbines and health problems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm0Oe8J6qT8

 

[Voyageur]

Just finished watching a documentary on the adverse effects under continuing scientific review of ‘Wind Turbines’, (discussed above), in this 45 min film. There is much of the same information discussed above by RyanX, parallel and c.a. in 2011, and adds upon this to our current time.

This film, ‘Wind Rush’ featured on ‘Doc Zone', Feb 7th, 2013 states that it is only available in Canada on their website, which is unfortunate.

If you reside in Canada, here is the link:

_http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/wind-rush.html

Here is the article accompanying the film:

About the Episode

Driving by a wind farm, looking at the rural houses, it’s easy to be skeptical about the talk of wind turbines making people sick. We’re told that wind turbines are good and green. So how could those people living by them have an issue?

But there is a problem—and it’s there because some governments and wind companies didn’t do their homework before installing megawatt after megawatt of huge industrial machines. And as a result there are people living among the turbines who are suffering.

In the new documentary film WIND RUSH, produced for CBC Doc Zone by Toronto’s 90th Parallel Productions, the battleground for the pro and anti wind forces is southern Ontario. The government there pledged to wean the province off coal fired generation plants and replace them with green wind energy.

But as soon as the turbines went up in places like Wolf Island, Amaranth and Bruce County, people realized they could hear them. Sometimes it was like a whisper, but other times it sounded more like a jet taking off.

And then it got worse.

New turbines started coming in at two and three times the size of the old ones. And they were even louder. It led to chronic sleeplessness for many people living close by—and that can lead to diabetes, depression and heart disease. Others were affected in their inner ears by low-level sounds that set off their equilibrium. Doctors started seeing patient after patient complaining of the same sets of symptoms. And then people started to realize that no one had done any significant human health studies before giving the green light to the turbine farms.

WIND RUSH takes viewers to southwestern Alberta, where wind has been an energy staple for more than twenty years. There is plenty of room for humans and windmills to coexist—a stark contrast to Ontario, where the same prairie technology was installed in a dramatically different landscape. The film then moves to Denmark, a country long considered the poster-child for the wind energy movement. But as WIND RUSH reveals, the relationship between the Danes and turbines has soured.

WIND RUSH talks to people on either side of the turbine divide, and then turns to scientists to try and determine what has gone wrong. In the next several years the turbines will double in size again—bigger, louder and more powerful. But without sufficient research have the

.Even 3 km. away can have adverse effects. The standard is 500m.

.It is not the volume, it is the tone and rhythm (e.g., once per second or three times per second) – sleep & system disruption' (infra sound).

Dr. Salt Posits:

_http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/wind.html

There are several ways that infrasound could affect you even though you cannot hear it. They are:

1. Causing Amplitude Modulation (pulsation) of heard sounds.

We know that infrasound affects the sensory cells of the ear in a way that changes their sensitivity (like turning the volume control of the stereo up and down repeatedly). This is a biological form of amplitude modulation that cannot be measured with a sound level meter. The people who are measuring amplitude modulation of heard sounds with sound meters are looking at something completely different. Biological amplitude modulation can be much more powerful, with the volume cycling from going from “off” to “full”, rather than just changing a few dB. So, to investigate amplitude modulation without considering the infrasound-induced component is never going to explain the true nature of the problem.

Symptoms: Pulsation, annoyance, stress

• Stimulating “subconscious” pathways.

We know that activity in many nerves of the ear does not result in “hearing”. If the nerves from the utricle or semi-circular canals are stimulated, you may get eye movements and changes in tension of neck muscles, but you don't hear it. The pathway of conscious hearing is very well established. It goes from the inner hair cells of the cochlea, through type I auditory nerve fibers, to the fusiform cells of the cochlear nucleus in the brain, and so on. This pathway has been well-studied. The outer hair cells of the ear (the ones that are sensitive to infrasound) do not connect to this conscious pathway. They connect to the type II nerves (which make up 5% of the nerve fibers), then to granule cells in the brain, then to cartwheel cells and to a host of other pathways in the brain. The cartwheel cells are known to be inhibitory to hearing which may explain why the stimulation is not heard. It is known that granule cells are connected into circuits related to attention and alerting. It is not unreasonable to think that stimulation of this pathway could wake you up, and you wouldn't even hear what had actually woken you.

Symptoms: Sleep disturbance, panic, with chronic sleep deprivation leading to blood pressure elevation, memory dysfunction and more.

• Causing Endolymphatic Hydrops.

The endolymph is a fluid filled compartment in the ear, like a balloon, surrounded by delicate membranes. In some conditions, such as in people with Meniere's disease, a swelling of this compartment occurs. These patients suffer from repeated vertigo spells, fluctuating low frequency hearing loss, tinnitus and a sensation of fullness or pressure in the ear. Low frequency sounds, at levels that are not damaging and do not affect hearing, have been shown to cause endolymphatic hydrops. This can occur quickly, but also recovers quickly so there are minimal consequences. This effect has been demonstrated with tones as low as 50 Hz, but has never been studied with lower sound frequencies or with infrasound. There is no reason to believe that lower frequency sounds will not generate hydrops, as we know that endolymphatic responses to infrasound are larger than those to heard sounds. As hydrops develops, endolymph moves and expands the weakest part of the balloon, which is the saccule. The saccule is the body's gravity receptor, so if it is disturbed you will feel “off balance”, dizzy (subjective vertigo) and nauseaous, especially if only one ear is affected (maybe the one you had on the pillow?- see above). Studies so far have only studied this for brief exposures of a few minutes. Effects are likely to increase with prolonged exposure to the sound. Furthermore, when the endolymphatic hydrops reaches a degree where the helicotrema of the cochlea is occluded, this makes the ear about 20 dB more sensitive to the low frequency sound and will undoubtedly exacerbate the problem.

Symptoms: Unsteadiness, dysequilibrium, vertigo, nausea, “seasickness”, tinnitus, sensation of pressure or fullness in the ear

• Possibly Accelerating Presbyacusis (making you go deaf faster over the years)

In animals exposed to damaging noise, with and without low frequency sound present, animals had larger areas of damage when low frequency sound was present. So, if you are doing anything noisy (mowing the yard, using a chainsaw) the damage to your ears could be greater if low frequency or infrasound levels are high. Such effects may be small and may take 30-40 years to become apparent. (Unfortunately, in 40 years this will make a great epidemiological project for someone). But in the meantime, be very careful and wear hearing protection when pursuing noisy pastimes near sources of infrasound (that you can't even hear). As a side-note, hearing protectors, especially the over-the-ear cup type, will not protect against infrasound even though they do reduce the damaging sounds you can hear. Even, in-the-ear foam plugs will not stop infrasound. Infrasound can only be blocked by a solid earplug, either custom fitted to the ear canal or sealed with jelly to generate an air-tight seal.

The Danish issues seem particularly intense in rural areas, as systems are continually being pushed on land and generally not offshore in wind farms (double the price). One starts to realize this is very big business and like many engineered systems, often bad designs are continually copied.

. There are > 170 anti wind groups in Denmark.
. A Wind Turbine costs about 6 million US and there are plans to install 900 more in rural communities.

The film also features Danish acoustician professor Henrik Moeller (Aarlborg University) showing some experiments on how industry calculates noise and what really should be calculated. These low frequency sounds penetrating into people’s homes reminded me of the EM thread, whereby other, yet similar principles were involved.

From this link, according to Professor Moeller:

_https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/10/29/windfarm-scandal-in-denmark/

…he is accusing the Minister of the Environment of being shy of reality with his figures of 4 – 11%. According to the professor’s estimates, 22 to 42% of the neighbors will be significantly affected by wind turbines, day or night (1). The percentage is huge, and the scandal is becoming ever so more difficult to ignore, comments Mark Duchamp.

Here is a pdf listed in the references on acoustic pollution:

_http://waubrafoundation.com.au/Wind_Turbine_Acoustic_Pollution_Assessment_Requirements.pdf

Near the closing scene of the film there are many protests in Canada every time these large turbines are planned in communities. There are (new) studies in the works by Health Canada slated for 2017 (wonder how that will reflect).

One interviewer discusses, basically, that the Global Warming alarmists rushing to curb CO2, were greeted with a “Gold Rush Mentality” of money thrown at them to run with these large wind turbines, without ever factoring the human health effects.

There are people suffering and not being heard - it continues.