Can Wind Turbines Make You Sick?

Here's a great summary of the latest wind news from The Slate. It's full of useful hyperlinks to the original sources.

Wind turbines near Palm Springs, Calif.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

A new syndrome appears to be highly contagious.

By Keith Kloor|Posted Wednesday, March 20, 2013, at 1:17 PM

In the past several years, scores of people living near wind farms have claimed to have been sickened by noise from the rotating blades. They have complained of everything from headaches and depression to conjunctivitis and nosebleeds. Is “wind turbine syndrome” real? Is it just another imaginary illness stoked by loons on the Internet? Are the victims a bunch of fakers?

Noisy environments can be irritating and sleep-disrupting. But advocates of the new syndrome (which is not medically recognized) say that wind turbines pose specific dangers. They claim that exposure to wind farms’ low-frequency noise, even vibrations below the threshold of human hearing, is having dangerous physiological effects.

Several recent studies might explain what’s going on here. One of them, published in Health Psychology, found that the power of suggestion can induce symptoms associated with wind turbine syndrome. Researchers exposed 60 participants to 10 minutes of infrasound (vibrations too low in frequency to hear) and sham infrasound (that is, silence). Before the listening sessions, half the group was shown television footage of people who lived near wind farms recounting the harmful effects they said were caused by noise from the spinning blades. Within this group, the people who scored high on a test of anxiety became symptomatic whether they were exposed to low-frequency noise or sham infrasound.

As one of the authors of the study points out, this appears to be a classic case of the nocebo effect. It’s the evil twin of the placebo effect, which is often a pain-alleviating response to a sham pill or treatment. Nocebo effects are harmful symptoms that arise from negative information. For example, some participants in medical trials who are warned of potential adverse side effects experience precisely those side effects, even though they’re really taking a phony medication. The nocebo effect is psychogenic, a case of the mind making the body sick.

Several factors appear to be contributing to the sudden onset of medical problems attributed to wind turbines. A study released last week from the University of Sydney found that most of the health complaints about wind turbines came from an area of Australia where an organized anti-wind movement has been publicizing health concerns since 2009. (Coincidentally, the term wind turbine syndrome was coined in 2009 as the title of a self-published book.) "Health complaints were as rare as proverbial rocking horse droppings until the scare-mongering groups began megaphoning their apocalyptic, scary messages to rural residents," says study author Simon Chapman. As he pointed out to the Guardian: "If wind farms were intrinsically unhealthy or dangerous in some way, we would expect to see complaints applying to all of them, but in fact there is a large number where there have been no complaints at all."

And yet, the number of health problems attributed to wind turbines seems to multiply by the day, according to a compendium that Chapman maintains. His list now tops more than 200 maladies, which leads him to ask sardonically if there has ever been a bigger threat to humanity.

The epidemic also attests to the power of modern media, especially those outlets that have hyped anecdotal claims of wind turbine syndrome. A study published late last year in Health, Risk & Society calls this the "fright factor." Researchers surveying newspaper coverage of wind power in Ontario, Canada, between 2007 and 2011 found that many articles focused on “environmental risks and human health” concerns. It turns out that the press may be just as responsible as anti-wind activists for triggering the nocebo effect in those who believe they have fallen ill from wind turbines.

That jibes with a finding from a study published earlier this month in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research that asked in its title, "Are media warnings about the adverse effects of modern life self-fulfilling?" The study addressed another supposed danger—electromagnetic fields from Wi-Fi signals—that also has the power to evoke a nocebo response. As in the wind turbine study, participants watched a TV report of people claiming that Wi-Fi signals had caused them to fall ill. Researchers exposed participants to sham Wi-Fi signals and found that a number of the people (once again, those who were already identified as having an anxious personality) exhibited symptoms such as stomach pain and headaches.

Reports on the supposed dangers of electromagnetic fields from cellphone towers and overhead power lines have been circulating in the media for years. The roots of EMF hysteria in the United States can be traced back to the 1980s and 1990s and the work of a crusading journalist who published stories in The New Yorker under the heading “Annals of Radiation.” People have attributed a myriad of illnesses to EMF, particularly neurological disorders and brain tumors. But after many millions of dollars of peer-reviewed research in the past few decades, there is no credible scientific evidence for such claims.

Still, concerns are so persistent globally that the World Health Organization (WHO) has looked comprehensively into the matter, concluding: "Despite the feeling of some people that more research needs to be done, scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than for most chemicals. Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low-level electromagnetic fields."

In the United States, paranoia over EMF seems to have died down in recent years, though there are plenty of dead-enders who still flog the issue. Those who might have been inclined to fret about the danger of power lines may now instead be focusing their fears on cellphones. (This subset of chronic worriers should know that everything gives you cancer.)

Meanwhile, people living near wind farms, including a number of residents in one Massachusetts community, say they are experiencing headaches, insomnia, ringing in the ears, and other symptoms. It’s impossible to know whether they are extra-sensitive to low-frequency noise, would have had insomnia and headaches wherever they live, or are psychologically predisposed to react badly to negative information on wind turbines. For the time being, perhaps Stephen Colbert's take on wind turbine syndrome as a "communicated disease" seems the best explanation. Here's hoping this article doesn't spread it any further.

More noise from Nissenbaum

The following is a post on www.quora.com by Mike Barnard.  It is referring to a recent paper by Nissenbaum, et al in the journal Noise and Health. The question being asked on Quora is  "How reliable is this study?".

Summary:  Its reliability is very low.  This is a flawed and misleadingly titled study by long-time anti-wind lobbyists.

• It mistakes correlation for causation, and overstates correlation
• It downplays or ignores long-understood impacts of both bias and impacts of change in creating annoyance
• There are significant unstated conflicts-of-interest, biases and allegiances to an anti-wind lobbyist group among the six authors and reviewers
• One of the authors has been actively involved in creating anti-wind bias and annoyance in these sites for years
• It should be considered against the 17 major world-wide reviews to date which have found no health impacts from wind generation.

1. The study overstates causation and correlation, and understates the impact of bias of the studied groups.
   
   a.  Nissenbaum et al are overstating the strength of the correlation that their data shows. In contrast to the conclusions, figures 1 and 2 show a very weak dose-response, if there is one at all. The near horizontal 'curve fits' and large amount of data scatter are indications of the weak relationship between sleep quality and turbine distance. The authors seem to use a low p-value as support for the hypothesis that sleep disturbance is related to turbine distance. A better interpretation of the p-value related to a near horizontal line fit would be that it suggests a high probability of a weak dose response. Correlation coefficients are not given but should have been to indicate the quality of the curve fits. Intrinsik points out an additional failing of the report:
   

   Although there was a statistically significant difference between the mean PSQI scores in the near (7.8) and far group (6.0), it is important to remember that both of these average scores are greater than 5, which would qualify both groups as “poor sleepers”. When one examines the reported “% of PSQI score >5” no statistical difference between the near and far groups was found (p=0.0745).

   
   b. As the Intrinsik assessment points out:
   

   Given that the relationship between noise from wind turbines and health concerns is the fundamental premise of the study by Nissenbaum et al., it is surprising that the authors gave such little consideration to collection of actual sound data measurements at the study participant homes. The use of post-hoc sound data, visually obtained from figures in reports, is not scientifically defensible and should not have been used to draw conclusions about the findings of the questionnaires with distance from turbine locations. [16]

   
   c. Intrinsik also points out the misleading title of the study, another case of overstating conclusions available from the data:
   

   We also believe that the title of the paper “Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health” is not supported given the nature of the data presented. No evidence with respect to sound level (noise) and its effect on sleep and health has been presented in this paper  [16]

   
   Given that the authors themselves admit that they can't construct a dose-response curve, their conclusion that wind farms affect sleep is surprising:
   

   In their paper Nissenbaum et al. state that noise emitted by IWTs can affect sleep. However, their results do not support this statement. In fact, the authors state that “The data on measured and estimated noise levels were not adequate to construct a dose-response curve...” and no statistical analyses were conducted to assess this supposed relationship. Therefore, we do not believe that Nissenbaum et al. (2012) show any statistical difference in overall “poor” sleep quality or sleepiness between the groups. [16]

   
   d.  The studied communities, via agitators such as Nissenbaum, have developed strong negative attitudes to wind farms.  As this study shows, this is a much better predictor of the effects Nissenbaum is claiming than any actual noise from wind farms. [4]  
   
   Intrinsik goes further and asserts the conclusion that the authors, if unbiased, would have found from the data, that the study groups were annoyed by changes in their environment and self-reported health impacts arose from annoyance with the change:
   
   

   The authors pointed out that visual cue and attitude towards wind turbines“are known to affect the psychological response to environmental noise”.While this may be true, visual cue and attitude by themselves have been shown to be stronger drivers of psychological responses than a wind-turbine specific variable like sound itself (e.g., Pedersen 2004). Therefore, a conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that the self-reported health effects of people living near wind turbines can be likely attributable to physical manifestations from an annoyed state, rather than a wind-turbine specific factor like noise. Indeed, the weight of evidence in the wind turbine and human health literature points to a causal relationship between self-reported health effects and annoyance, which is to say annoyance brought on by the change in the local environment(i.e., a decrease in amenity) that wind turbines represent (Knopper and Ollson 2011). [16]

   
   e.  The authors' treatment of bias is poor, stating without evidence that accounting for selection and reporting bias would make their conclusions stronger, not weaker.
   
   f.  The sample size is small as is the control group (many studies have small sample sizes; this makes this less authoritative, not worthless in and of itself.)
   
2. The study group has undisclosed biases influenced by one of the authors.
   
   This is not Nissenbaum's first study of the Mars Hill or the Vinalhaven wind farms.  He ran studies there in 2010 and 2011 as well, using a format pioneered by anti-wind folks in the UK and then by Nina Pierpont, creator of Wind Turbine Syndrome. [3], [9] The a-scientific studies are so poorly constructed that they are guaranteed to make people ascribe new symptoms to wind turbines, and to take completely ignored minor symptoms and turn them into major complaints. These studies have pre-loaded the biases of these study groups, making it difficult to accept the the conclusions of this better structured study.  The data this study is based upon is not new data, but data that was obtained several years ago that has been presented at the ICBEN conference in London (UK) over a year ago and has been presented as part of anti-wind farm submissions, which is not unusual, but the data and the conclusions Nissenbaum et al have been putting forward has been strongly criticized in the past. [10] For example, a 2012 Massachusetts expert panel had this to say about the conclusions:
   

   details of how homes were identified, how many homes/people were approached, and differences between those who did and did not participate are important to know. Without this, attributing any of the observed associations to the wind turbines (either noise from them or the sight of them) is premature. [16]

3. The authors' pre-existing bias is not disclosed or accounted for.
   
   Jeffery Aramini is the person most often interviewed in newspaper reports but the study is co-authored with Michael Nissenbaum and Christopher Hanning.  
   
   a. Aramini has maintained a lower profile than Nissenbaum and Hanning, but is on the Advisory Group of an anti-wind lobbyist group, Wind Vigilance. [11]  
   b. Nissenbaum is a long-time anti-wind activist and also a member of the Advisory Group of Wind Vigilance. [1] 
   c. Hanning is a long-time anti-wind activist as well, who has been writing anti-wind papers that have not been able to get into even low-impact, peer-reviewed journals and is also on the Advisory Group of Wind Vigilance.[2] [12] 
   
   Fronting with the lower profile Aramini in newspaper interviews appears to be a convenient way to disguise the deep and long-standing bias of the authors.
   
   The authorial bias can easily be detected by the inappropriate use of the emotionally laden "industrial wind turbine", a term which was selected and focussed grouped by anti-wind lobbying organizations associated with the Koch Brothers.[14]  Neutral language includes "wind turbine" and "wind turbine generator". 
   
4. The thanked reviewers have unstated biases and conflicts-of-interest as they are paid anti-wind experts who have a long history of directly testifying against wind energy.
   
   a. Carl Phillips is relatively new to this group, having been asked to leave his post at an Alberta university for taking tobacco industry money and remarkably finding that tobacco products were much less harmful than people thought.[6]  He has found a new source of funds in anti-wind lobbying.  As he says on his blog, Ep-Ology:
   

   I knew what answer I was going to present from the start. So when I wrote my COI [conflict of interest] statement, I did not hesitate to describe, matter-of-fact, that I do work as a testifying expert on behalf of communities fighting the siting of local wind turbines.

   b. Rand not only testifies, his firm gains revenue from measuring sound near wind farms for complainants and to assist litigation. [7]  Rand, in any event, 
   c. James has been testifying for fee against wind farms since 2006.[8]  
   
   Phillips and James are both members of the Advisory Group of Wind Vigilance as well.  The three thanked are bolstering their court room pitches, and cannot be considered credible unbiased assessors. If they are the only peer reviewers, this is grounds for retraction. As their conflicts and pre-existing biases are unstated, this too is grounds for serious concern.
   
5. Noise and Health is a rarely referenced journal of low impact.
   
   The journal, Noise and Health has a very low impact index of 1.2, meaning that few researchers reference their studies; there can be a variety of reasons for this including poor quality or trivial papers. [5]  The journal may not have sought independent reviewers who would have pointed out the flaws in the article, but may have accepted the reviewers that came with the article as suggestions.  If the journal did not gain separate review, this is a reason for retraction in and of itself.
   
6. Wind Vigilance, on whose Advisory Group five of six authors and reviewers sit, has been promoting wind health issues in the absence of peer-reviewed evidence and against 17 major studies' findings for years. 
   
   As Wind Vigilance is a central theme to this, it would be useful to understand their positions and the degree of evidence behind them:
   
   

   Based on a review of the evidence, the Society for Wind Vigilance is satisfied that there is a significant probability of adverse health effects for human subjects living within 2.0 km of land based industrial wind turbines. The Society for Wind Vigilance recognizes the urgent need for further human health research to finalize guidelines for siting and noise levels that will protect human health. In the interim the Society for Wind Vigilance recommends that land based industrial wind turbines be sited a minimum of 2 km from the property line of non participating residents. Distances greater than 2 km will typically be required for special terrain such as turbines on ridges and offshore turbines. [13]

   
   Bolding is mine to indicate statements which require elaboration:
   1. This statement was released April 2012, six months before the first peer-reviewed paper that found any issues with wind energy and health was published.  In the meantime, 17 major reviews by independent and credible organizations worldwide of thousands of pieces of peer-reviewed research found no issue with wind energy and human health.  On what grounds did Wind Vigilance make the assessment that all of the other studies and the vast majority of medical, engineering and acoustic professionals were wrong?  On what grounds did they decide on 2 kilometers?
   2. "Industrial wind turbines" is the preferred emotive phrasing of anti-wind lobbyists.  It is not neutral language in this discussion, just as "wind farms" is the preferred emotive language of pro-wind advocates (including me).  This language was created by lobbying organizations associated with the Koch Brothers and other astroturf funding undiversified fossil fuel organizations.[14]
   3. The reasoning behind greater setbacks on ridges and lakes is not explained, but given the weakness of the rest of their position, it can only be to ensure that wind turbines will never be seen or heard.  Obviously this is an extreme and foolish position.
   
   That five of six authors and reviewers of this paper are so tightly associated with an organization with such a strong and strident opposition to evidence-based siting guidelines and wind energy in general is indicative.  That they do not make clear their association, their long-standing bias and their conflicts-of-interest is also indicative.
   
7. 17 major reviews have found no health impacts from wind energy
   
   This single paper must be contrasted to the 17 (to-date) major reviews world-wide of hundreds or thousands of peer-reviewed articles related to wind energy, health and noise which have found no health impacts.  All studies agree that a small subset of people very close to wind farms find the noise annoying. [15]  The best consensus is that the vast majority of health complaints attributed to wind energy are the result of a psychogenic or communicated psychosomatic illness; people are making themselves sick when they are told that they will get sick. [15]

Full disclosure. This assessment was developed with the assistance of:

• Dr. David Perry -- Dr. Perry holds degrees in electrical engineering and neuroscience from The University of Melbourne and a PhD from the Bionics Institute examining how sound stimulation from a cochlear implant is represented in the brain. Dr. Perry is also on the Board of Directors of community-owned wind project Hepburn Wind in Australia.
• Richard Mackie - Mr. Mackie is an Engineer with degrees from the University of Auckland and the Australian Graduate School of Management. He is Managing Director of Advanced Energy Consulting (Australia) which does work related to wind energy projects.
• The Intrinsik professional assessment upon which some of the comments are based was funded by CanWEA (Canadian Wind Energy Association).

References:
[1] Dr. Michael A. Nissenbaum - The Society for Wind Vigilance (windvigilance.com)
[2] http://docs.wind-watch.org/Hanni...
[3] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&r...
[4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/sci...
[5] Journal and Academic Rankings (sciencegateway.org)
[6] Tobacco researcher leaves U of A (cbc.ca)
[7] Wind Turbines: Published Articles (randacoustics.com)
[8] Mike Barnard's answer to Wind Power: Is Dr. Nina Pierpoint's "Wind Turbine Syndrome" a real medical syndrome caused by wind turbines?
[9] http://www.windaction.org/documents/33057 (wind-watch.org)
[10] http://www.ert.gov.on.ca/files/2...
[11] Jeff Aramini, DVM, MSC, PHD - The Society for Wind Vigilance(windvigilance.com)
[12] Dr Chris Hanning - The Society for Wind Vigilance (windvigilance.com)
[13] News - The Society for Wind Vigilance (windvigilance.com)
[14] Turbine foes try to forge national opposition movement (eenews.net)
[15] Wind Power: What might cause people who live near wind turbines to get sick?
[16] http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/Intrins...

Additional references:
[1] Additional background on the authors and the nature of the preceding studies performed by Mr. Nissenbaum here:  A Vet, A Radiologist, And An Anaesthetist Walk Into A Scientific Controversy... (blogspot.ca)
[3] Nissenbaum paper recycles claims on wind energy and health already found inadequate by courts and expert panel (canwea.ca)

We were wrong on turbine noise, admit protesters

Farmer David Dewes

This story comes to us from our friends at Yes to Renewable Energy in Australia.

Leicester Mercury

October 31, 2011

When they first heard there were going to be four giant wind turbines on their doorsteps, villagers feared the worst.

But now even some of the most hardened protesters have admitted fears over the noise have come to nothing.

The county's first commercial wind farm has towered over the countryside between the villages of Gilmorton, Ashby Magna and Dunton Bassett, near Lutterworth, since its construction in March.

Concerns over noise from the 410ft turbines prompted swift action from residents who campaigned against the project. However, after being in operation for almost a month homeowners have said they are getting used to the gentle "swoosh" of the giant blades.

John Phillips, 70, lives in Ashby Road, less than a mile from the wind farm. He said he was against the construction at first.

He said: "I went to all the protest meetings and I was against them from the start.

"But now, I must say they don't really bother me. I can't hear them and I can barely see them.

"It's like the industrial revolution all over again – people don't like change until it actually happens and they get used to it."

Kelly Gamage, 33, moved into her home in Gilmorton in July, and said she had no idea about the plans to build a wind farm there. She said: "It was a shock when we found out, we certainly didn't expect anything like this when we moved in.

"At first we didn't want them on our doorstep, but now they're up they're not doing any harm and there's no noise coming from them."

The turbines, which cost £1.8million each, stand between the three villages.

David Dewes, who owns Low Spinney Farm, after which the wind farm is named, said: "I think now the ice has been broken people are warming to them. Our home is very close to one of the turbines and the most we hear is a slight swooshing sound – some people have said it's quite calming actually."

The wind farm, which is connected to the National Grid, is expected to provide enough power for 5,000 homes.

It is estimated that it has produced 2.5 gigawatts of electricity since the blades began turning at the start of October.

Parish councils at Gilmorton, Ashby Magna and Dunton Bassett will receive £5,333 a year as part of the agreement with the developer, Broadview Energy.

The intolerable noise of surf

This is a guest blog from Richard (Dick) Hill, vacationing in the Turks and Caicos:

While vacationing on the beach at Turks and Caicos today, I carried out a test on the ambient sound levels.  On my iPad I have two sound measuring programs.  The sounds were recorded from our second floor balcony of the ocean surf at a reef which is around one mile away.

The SPL Meter registered an average of 64.7 db with a peak of 82.7 db.

The Volume Tester meter showed an average of 61.8 db with a peak of 96.3.

These sound levels are considered pleasant by the thousands of residents and visitors who live along the shores.

But, when compared to the Ontario wind turbine regulations of 40 db max at 550 metres, the continuous surf sound would appear like a large jet aircraft passing overhead.

Anybody who hears a wind turbine at 550 metres has concerns not related to the turbines.

Update

A reader suggested that I try to find a sound level in the resort as low as 40 db.  I tried and failed.

The sound levels recorded for a one minute were:

SPL Meter in unit living room showed an average of 61.7 db with a max of 70.8 db and min of 50.8 db.

The Volume Meter in the unit living room showed an average of 58.1 db with a max of 91.0 and min of 54.6 db.

SPL Meter unit bath with closed doors showed an average of 57.7 db with a max of 62.1 db and min of 44.8 db.

The Volume Tester unit bath with closed doors showed an average of 48.5 db with a max of 70.5 db and min of 44.8 db

As it is very difficult to find a living location anywhere with sound level as low as 40db, it is inconceivable to understand how some individuals can hear a wind turbine at 500 metres let alone suffer any ill effects.

Where did 550m come from?

Click on image for a larger view

The Ontario Green Energy Act included a provision for a minimum 550m setback from a wind turbine to a receptor (a receptor is a residence).  Critics have claimed that the setback distance was just an arbitrary political decision.  This article from Treehugger explains that the decision is actually based on good science.

Treehugger.com
December 15, 2011
Brian Merchant

Does your neighbor's humming refrigerator keep you up at night? Then a wind turbine in your neighborhood won't either. That's the takeaway from this nifty little graphic whipped up by GE (the company manufactures wind turbines and would benefit from the nonsensical stigma dropped). And while it doesn't forgive the company for being phenomenal tax cheats, it does provide a nice visual reminder of how innocuous wind turbines are. Click here for a larger version.

See, you've probably heard stories about homeowners complaining about how loud wind turbines are, or even been regaled with the spectacular nonsense that is W.T.S. (Wind Turbine Syndrome). And though the media jumps on stories like these -- backlash against new technology that's supposed to make our lives better! -- wind turbine noise complaints have been shown time and again to be dubious at best, and W.T.S. has practically been laughed out of the medical community.

No, these people are complaining about change itself, or about something they consider ugly, or that embodies, to them, a political ideology they do not agree with. Wind turbines must be built hundreds of meters from homes--at which distance they emanate a dull, nearly inaudible hum. In fact, if these people own refrigerators, that's probably enough to drown out the 'racket' ...