We are reminded today of the “health” study–really just a review paper–sponsored by the wind power corporate lobby group CanWEA, which concluded that not only was there any proof of any association between industrial wind turbine noise (the word infrasound was not uttered in those days) and health impacts, in fact, the research team said, there is so little evidence of anything that we recommend no more money be spent on research. At all.

Appalling in the world of scientific research, to make a statement like that.

Now today, Grey Bruce Medical Officer of Health Hazel Lynn and colleague Dr Ian Arra, released the results of their own review and said, there are NO studies in the world that prove there is NO association at all between turbine noise and health impacts. In other words, the studies that CanWEA loves to trot out saying they are proof of no problems at all, are not valid.

At present, Dr Lynn and Arra said, the associations are weak, but not absent, and more research is needed they concluded.

Meanwhile, the wind power lobby group and corporations go around telling people that anyone complaining about wind turbine noise and health effects needs some kind of therapy, or an injection in their wallet–if either one of these things happens, their health problems will go away.

In the Ontario Farmer recently, farm owner Harvey Wrightman of Adelaide-Metcalfe, quoted Dr Michael Nissenbaum (whose study of turbine noise at Mars Hill indicated health effects as far away as three MILES): “If someone came into a doctor’s office and said they have chest pain and the physician said, ‘It’s all in your head,’ without investigating, that would be malpractice. It’s the same thing if patients are complaining of sleep disturbances and other ill effects, and off the top of your head you claim they’re making it up and it’s about the way the turbines look, especially when there’s a known, plausible mechanism for why people could be affected. There’s nothing magical about the effect that people are sleeping poorly due to the noise. There’s nothing difficult to understand or fantastical.”

“This whole issue has always been about ethics,” Wrightman continues, “and what the application of the practical limits are of harm, i.e., what you can reasonably accept in the way of harm of the rural population….Why are there increasing reports of vertigo and nausea with the latest projects?

“The first step to getting those answers is a moratorium on construction of projects. That would be a real show of understanding and respect for rural Ontario.”

We would add that there is more than ethics at play here, we would suggest that at this point, if the government has the slightest clue what it is doing could be wrong and could be harming people, there will be legal liability. The wind power companies, too. And the people who have leased their land for the turbines without thought for their neighbours and communities.

Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com