Doctors blow the whistle on wind turbines
An impressive number of health practitioners, researchers and acousticians around the world are voicing their concern about the effects of wind turbines on people’s health (1). Their list was just published by the Waubra Foundation, the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) and the North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW), the latter two representing over 600 associations of windfarm victims from 27 countries. These health professionals should be honored, assert the three NGOs: it takes courage to uphold the rights of victims against the powerful coalition of vested interests which supports the wind industry.
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In Australia, where the controversy is reaching new heights, a wind industry executive has been singling out Dr Sarah Laurie in a bid to make the public forget the many other health professionals who alert to the dangerous effects of wind turbines: “…the largest public relations issue for the industry at the moment is the theory of an ex-doctor that infrasound or low frequency noise from wind turbines is likely to make anyone within 10 km of a wind turbine sick.”
The blog Stopthesethings, which rose to fame denouncing the wind industry, replied:
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“So, the largest public relations issue for the wind industry is Sarah Laurie? One woman against the deep pockets of the pro-wind lobby.
One woman speaking with local communities.
One woman gathering data about the other side of your story, the one not covered in your press releases, presentations, websites, newsletters, advertisements, promoted by your highly paid PR consultants, and not covered by the Clean Energy Council with its army of lobbyists and government access.
One woman speaking out, working for two and a half years as a volunteer. What a compliment!” (2)
Sarah Laurie is a physician who has taken time off to fight her own cancer, and look after her family. “She is by no means an `ex-doctor´,”says EPAW’s Mark Duchamp.“She replied to that libelous spin at a Senate hearing on wind turbines” (3).
Dr Nina Pierpoint, PhD, MD, who intensively studied the health problems of 10 windfarm neighbor families, and coined the phrase Wind Turbine Syndrome in the process, has also been attacked and vilified. “Yet her meticulous, scholarly and pioneering work has been used around the world by turbine victims and their physicians, to better understand the reported symptoms and illnesses. The study has been rigorously peer reviewed, translated into multiple languages, and even quoted by health officials”, adds Duchamp. Dr Sarah Laurie, CEO of the Waubra Foundation, fully agrees: “Dr Pierpont used her multidisciplinary skills and academic experience to evaluate the data she collected. Many of her colleagues do not understand why her study is so important, until they start seeing the sick people.”
Acousticians too are involved in the growing controversy (1). Some have published research demonstrating that wind turbines emit infrasound and low frequency noise(ILFN), and that these emissions resonate inside homes to the point where residents sometimes resort to sleeping on the veranda rather than in their bedrooms. An important acoustic study, just published, concludes that “enough evidence and hypotheses have been given herein to classify LFN (low frequency noise) and infrasound as a serious issue, possibly affecting the future of the (wind) industry.” (4)
What makes that study special, among all others that collected similar evidence?
Sherri Lange of NA-PAW replies: “It was conducted by four different firms of acousticians: two of them have done work for the wind industry, whereas the other two never did. The idea was to ensure objectivity.”
Not least among acousticians speaking up for the victims is Professor Henrik Moeller, Denmark’s most highly regarded acoustician. In spite of the risk for his career, he has severely criticized his government for manipulating the data to allow the siting of wind turbines too close to homes. We know now that this causes chronic sleep deprivation, leading to a debilitated immune system and a variety of diseases.
“This list below reveals some of the true heroes of our times. They will be vindicated,”
concludes Lange.
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