12 important things to know about wind farms, health and nocebo effects, by Simon Chapman

Simon Chapman, the Australian misocapnist, has just posted a video lecture outlining his thoughts about wind turbines and health, titled "12 things you need to know about wind farms and health". It's more than 26 minutes long, and seemingly designed to bore the viewer so much that they will give up and take his thesis on faith. Your editor, however, sat through the whole thing and here raises some issues with Professor Chapman's presentation.

1. Modern wind farms have existed since early 1980s.

2. Health objections to wind farms are relatively recent [since 2002].

The obvious question is, has anything in the nature of wind farms changed?

The numbers of wind turbines have increased steadily over the past decade, so it is not surprising to find that they have affected more people.

(source: Garrad Hassan, 2008)

(source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2012)

Furthermore, the size of wind turbines made a distinctive leap around the year 2000. Larger sizes and higher towers mean more noise travelling farther, and particularly more low-frequency noise, which travels even farther and does not stop at — in fact, often resonates with — walls and windows.

3. Opponents claim there are immediate and long-term health impacts.

Chapman illogically presents examples of no effects reported as proof that instances of reported effects are false and again dodges the obvious question of mechanism: size and number of turbines, distance from homes, nature of noise that affects some people and not others. Nina Pierpont suggested an inner ear disturbance (like motion sickness) caused by low-frequency noise from large (post-2000) wind turbines sited within 1-2 km from homes. Before then, low frequencies were not considered in noise measurements. Since then, low-frequency noise has indeed been measured in the homes of affected individuals. See, e.g.:

"Dynamic measurements of wind turbine acoustic signals"
"The Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study"
"Cooperative Measurement Survey and Analysis of Low-Frequency and Infrasound at the Shirley Wind Farm"

4. Even a majority of wind farms with large turbines have zero complaint history.

This claim has been critiqued elsewhere.

5. The number of people complaining about health or noise is very small.

There is no actual registry of such complaints. Chapman is making it up. Companies do not report such complaints. Leases and easements typically prevent public disclosure of complaints if the person wants payments to continue. Chapman's "study" relies on parliamentary testimony, which would represent a very small fraction of affected people (he makes no attempt to estimate the degree of such sampling), media coverage, which of course varies tremendously in interest and bias and can not be comprehensive, and records of the wind companies themselves, apparently accepted without question or verification.

6. The "susceptibility" analogy with motion sickness does not stack up.

Actually, it does, but such nuance doesn't fit Chapman's neat theories. Update, August 4: This just in!

7. You name it ... they say wind farms cause it: 223 and growing!!

Since the primary vectors are stress and disturbed sleep, the broad range of effects — on all animals, not just humans — is not surprising. Chapman then picks out a few of the most extreme, ignoring exacerbation, to discount all reported effects. He also (in typical fashion) misreports them: for example, the "sudden death of 400 goats" he mocks as "seriously a report that was on the web attributed to wind turbines"; in fact, the story from Taiwan was the death of 400 goats over 3 years, beginning when a neighboring wind farm started operation, as reported by the Taiwan Council of Agriculture.

8. Many of the most commonly named problems are very common in any community.

And are more common after wind turbines start operating.

9. Complainants have refused to provide their medical records.

This charge is based on one appeal of a project approval in Ontario — Zephyr Farms in the township of Brooke-Alvinston, Lambton County — where the appellant was told to hand over the complete private health records of 20 individuals, despite their existing sworn testimony, within 1 week — which would then be considered only for "serious" harm to human health. Faced with this impossibility (not to mention the invasiveness), the appellant withdrew (the case was not "thrown out" as Chapman says). Since that project was erected, the adverse health effects warned of by the appellant have indeed occurred. Later such requests in Ontario for medical records have been met (e.g., at the hearing for Ostrander Point), as appellants know what to expect and have time to collect them.

10. Most complaints occur at wind farms targeted by anti-wind farm groups, mostly post 2009.

Duh. The groups provide a medium for publicizing complaints that are otherwise ignored or mocked. And the groups can not be active everywhere at once.

11. There have been 19 reviews of the evidence on wind farms, noise and health since 2003.

Actually, there seem to have been 28 so far, almost all of them, even some of those sponsored by the industry itself, recognizing the need for more research. Update, November 13, 2013:  Make that 35. But only 10 non-industry, non-government reviews.

12. Money may be a magic antidote to complaints.

With the use of the word "magic", Chapman shatters his whole charade of objective inquiry. It must be again noted that the receipt of money from wind companies typically requires silence about problems, a kind of inverse extortion. Chapman has been reassured by wind companies that there are no such gag clauses (which of course are illegal). Nevertheless, many individuals who lease their land for wind turbines do in fact complain of ill effects.

Conclusion:  "What we're seeing is what we call ah um an incidence of psych psychogenic illness." (nervous artifacts transcribed to indicate possible deliberate dishonesty)

Chapman defines psychogenic illness as "a constellation of symptoms suggestive of organic illness, but without an identifiable cause, that occurs between two or more people who share beliefs about those symptoms".

But adverse health effects from wind turbines are not "suggestive" of illness, they are illness. And nearby wind turbines are the easily identifiable cause. As for "shared beliefs", that applies to any illness, but in the case of wind turbines it is well documented that just as many people with a prior favorable view of them get sick as those with a previously more skeptical view. (An early example [2007] is Jane Davis of Deeping St Nicholas, England, and similar testimony of prior support and subsequent distress is indeed common.)

Chapman's suggested cure is apparently to suppress the issue in public and professional discourse, because the only real solution is to keep giant wind turbines an adequate distance from homes, workplaces, and recreational areas.

He quotes Francis Bacon (the alchemist): "Infections ... if you fear them, you call them upon you." The germ theory of infection has long proven that to be nonsense, just as continuing research in the physiological effects of low-frequency noise is validating the connection between giant wind turbines and adverse health effects.

(Chapman also takes the Bacon quote far out of context. It is from an essay on envy published in 1625:

Now, to speak of Public Envy :  There is yet some good in Public Envy, whereas in Private, there is none.  For Public Envy is as an ostracism, that eclipseth Men when they grow too great :  and therefore it is a bridle also to Great Ones, to keep them within Bounds.

This Envy, being in the Latin word Invidia, goeth in the Modern Languages by the name of Discontentment ;  of which we shall speak in handling Sedition.  It is a Disease in a State like to Infection ;  For as Infection spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it ;  so when Envy is gotten once into a State, it traduceth even the best Actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill Odour.  And therefore there is little won by intermingling of plausible Actions :  for that doth argue but a Weakness and Fear of Envy ;  which hurteth so much the more, as it is likewise usual in Infections, which, if you fear them, you call them upon you.

(Bacon seems to be saying that if you act in fear of envy, you invite it; but also that if you fear not envy, it will find you out anyway. His use of infection is clumsy as a metaphor, especially as he considers public envy a worthwhile check on power.)

Chapman goes on to present his "nocebo" thesis, despite the fact that people are not barraged with "fear mongering", but rather the opposite, with government, media, nonprofits, and educational institutions pitching industrial wind turbines as utterly benign. If he insists on the existence of a nocebo effect, then he has to explain the failure of this "placebo" innoculation against ill effects.

Chapman then moves on to attack Nina Pierpont, who described the consistent set of symptoms that she called "wind turbine syndrome", and proposed a mechanism that elegantly fits the facts, as mentioned above.

After a bit more mockery of complaints and advocates, he explains why this issue is so serious. No, it's not because the effect of low-frequency and pulsating noise from industrial wind turbines on public health needs to be more seriously studied. Simon Chapman, of the University of Sydney School of Public Health, is concerned instead that developers can not erect wind turbines anywhere they want. For example, he inaccurately describes the state of Victoria's designation of a 2-km buffer zone around wind turbines as a ban on erecting them closer to homes. In fact, Victoria simply allows a resident within that distance to say "no, thank you". These are not "no go zones", as Chapman claims. If he and his industry cronies were convincing about the lack of adverse health effects, they would have no worries. But unfortunately for their (publicly subsidized) business, the facts speak louder than their denial of them.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

When you put things in people’s heads

“I don’t understand why you’re saying these things ... It’s got to stop — can’t have it, mate. ... You don’t know how I feel — Mum is all upset. Is it attention for you ... is that what it is? I’m going to put you in a home, you know that I love you ... See what happens when you put things in people’s heads? You put it into their heads and it steamrolls on, and other people start to believe it. You’ve got to get these false thoughts out of your head, Tom, you’ve got to stop it — they’re wrong, you know they’re wrong. You’re not sick, you’re just, um, just going through your teens ... You see how you can put things into people’s heads? I suppose I’ll be doing it with him next? You can’t keep saying these things, Tom!”

— ¿Simon Chapman and his associated sociopaths ranting against doctors and acousticians who report infrasound and illness due to large-scale wind turbines, thereby challenging the authority of the industry and the self-delusions of its corporate cheerleaders?

— No, the quote is from the climactic scene in The War Zone, a 1999 film directed by Tim Roth, as the father of the family is confronted by his son and daughter, when the latter at last stops rationalizing to herself and denying to others the fact of his regularly raping her.

The sociopathic position is disturbingly similar: It’s all in her head, put there by the envious in a bid for attention and desire to hurt a rival. No ability to admit guilt, perhaps because the crime is so obvious and so egregious that denial is the only possible response, twisted into an effort to explain the witnesses as the sociopaths.

In one sense, though, they do indeed “put things into people’s heads”. They awaken the conscience, they give utterance to what was suppressed, by the victims and well as the perpetrators and their enablers. They give voice to what was kept unspoken. Both victim and attacker act for self-preservation. One of them must be silenced.

wind power, wind energy, human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism

See no evil, hear no evil, nocebo

Can expectations produce symptoms from infrasound associated with wind turbines?
Fiona Crichton, George Dodd, Gian Schmid, Greg Gamble, and Keith J. Petrie, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Health Psychology, March 2013, doi:10.1037/a0031760 [update: republished online November 25, 2013. The Power of Positive and Negative Expectations to Influence Reported Symptoms and Mood During Exposure to Wind Farm Sound.]

First paragraph:  Harnessing wind energy is a critical component of long-term strategies for securing sustainable power supply in countries throughout the world, with the potential to help address global climate change. However, recent opposition to wind farms has seen a substantial increase in rejection rates for new wind farm developments, which threatens the achievement of renewable energy targets. Much of the opposition to wind farms stems from the belief that the infrasound produced by wind turbines causes health complaints in nearby residents. Although there is no empirical support for claims that infrasound generated by wind turbines could trigger adverse health effects, there has been a lack of other plausible mechanisms that could explain the experience of nonspecific symptoms reported by some people living in the vicinity of wind turbines. In this study we investigate whether exposure to information that creates negative expectations about symptoms from infrasound could be a possible explanation for this relationship.

Spatio-temporal differences in the history of health and noise complaints about Australian wind farms: evidence for the psychogenic, “communicated disease” hypothesis
Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health, Alexis St George, Research Fellow, Karen Waller, and Vince Cakic, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia
March 2013, unpublished [update: published online October 16, 2013. The Pattern of Complaints about Australian Wind Farms Does Not Match the Establishment and Distribution of Turbines: Support for the Psychogenic, ‘Communicated Disease’ Hypothesis. PLoS ONE 8(10): e76584. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0076584]

Abstract (background, objectives, and conclusions):  With often florid allegations about health problems arising from wind turbine exposure now widespread in parts of rural Australia and on the internet, nocebo effects potentially confound any future investigation of turbine health impact. Historical audits of health complaints across periods when such claims were rare are therefore important. We test 4 hypotheses relevant to psychogenic explanations of the variable timing and distribution of health and noise complaints about wind farms in Australia. ... In view of scientific consensus that the evidence for wind turbine noise and infrasound causing health problems is poor, the reported spatio-temporal variations in complaints are consistent with psychogenic hypotheses that health problems arising are “communicated diseases” with nocebo effects likely to play an important role in the aetiology of complaints.

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The bias of both of these papers is glaring. The Crichton paper seems more worried about wind development targets than about human health, and Chapman expresses his long established contempt and mockery of people adversely affected by wind development with the phrase "often florid allegations".

Both papers disingenuously claim that there is no scientific support for the claim that infrasound can have physiological effects. In fact, there is, and mechanisms for such effects are currently being elucidated (see, eg, Responses of the ear to infrasound and wind turbines, Low-frequency noise: a biophysical phenomenon, Infrasound: your ears “hear” it but they don’t tell your brain, Owen Black affidavit re: wind turbine syndrome, and the work of Mariana Alves-Pereira and Nuno Castelo Branco in Portugal: Vibroacoustic disease, Vibroacoustic disease: biological effects of infrasound and low-frequency noise explained by mechanotransduction cellular signalling, Industrial wind turbines, infrasound and vibro-acoustic disease (VAD), In-home wind turbine noise is conducive to vibroacoustic disease). [Update: see bibliography of PubMed-indexed studies at www.aweo.org/infrasound.html.] Both papers thus set out only to prove that "hysteria" is the cause, seeing no reason to test that hypothesis against the evidence for physical causes which they simply ignore.

Nor do they seem to consider the barrage of "positive" information that has accompanied the buildup of wind power. Related to this, they fail to consider the possibility (never mind the many reports) that people with a favorable view of wind development become adversely affected after a nearby facility began operation.

For these reasons, Chapman's paper is simply a joke. There is not even a pretense of testing his hypothesis, only a laughable effort to demonstrate it.

The Crichton paper at least pretends to set up a controlled experiment. Unfortunately, since the researchers ignore the work of acousticians who have measured infrasound from wind farms, they don't come close to recreating the experience of actual wind turbine noise (as, e.g., explored in Development of experimental facility for testing human response to ILFN from wind turbines), let alone its reported effects over time. They thus end up only showing the effect of suggestibility in two different "sham" situations. No group was actually exposed to infrasound levels and patterns like those from wind turbines.

Finally, these researchers exploit the fact that this phenomenon is indeed new, and consequently not yet extensively investigated, having developed along with the relatively recent growth of wind power development closer to homes. Furthermore, as with all noise phenomena, not everyone is affected, and those that are, to different degrees. There has been no robust epidemiological study of the issue, so it is irresponsible as well as unethical to dismiss it out of hand. Neither of these papers betrays the slightest humanity towards the many people who are truly suffering, many of them forced out of their homes. Nor does either one express the slightest interest in actual study of the cases. Both papers seem instead to be attempts to run ahead of the continuing medical and acoustical research and declare the issue dead. But the science has already left them well behind.

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Update:  Another recent paper following Chapman's lead:

Fright factors about wind turbines and health in Ontario newspapers before and after the Green Energy Act
Benjamin Deignan, Erin Harvey, and Laurie Hoffman-Goetz, University of Waterloo, Ontario
Health, Risk & Society, March 2013, doi:10.1080/13698575.2013.776015

Abstract:  In this article, we analyse coverage of the health effects of wind turbines in Ontario newspapers relative to the Green Energy Act using published risk communication fright factors. Our aim was to provide insights into the health risk information presented in newspapers serving Ontario communities where wind turbines are located. ... We conclude that Ontario newspapers contain fright factors in articles about wind turbines and health that may produce fear, concern and anxiety for readers.

According to the abstract, this paper did not make any attempt to correlate the "fright factors" with health complaints, nor did it compare coverage of health concerns (which would of course be "negative") with coverage of wind energy development in general (which I dare say is overwhelmingly "positive"). And again, there does not seem to be any interest in examining actual cases, only in establishing theoretical bases for ignoring them.

This one seems even sillier (or more chilling) than Chapman's exercise, in that it is raising alarm about language. Are they suggesting that the Government of Ontario censor news coverage as part of its support for wind development?

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Update:  And another recent paper along the lines of Crichton/Petrie:

The influence of negative oriented personality traits on the effects of wind turbine noise
Jennifer Taylor, Carol Eastwick, Robin Wilson, and Claire Lawrence, University of Nottingham, U.K.
Personality and Individual Differences, February 2013, doi:10.1016/j.paid.2012.09.018

Abstract:  Concern about invisible environmental agents from new technologies, such as radiation, radio-waves, and odours, have been shown to act as a trigger for reports of ill health. However, recently, it has been suggested that wind turbines – an archetypal green technology, are a new culprit in explanations of medically unexplained non-specific symptoms (NSS): the so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome (Pierpont, 2009). The current study assesses the effect of negative orientated personality (NOP) traits (Neuroticism, Negative Affectivity and Frustration Intolerance) on the relationship between both actual and perceived noise on NSS. All households near ten small and micro wind turbines in two UK cities completed measures of perceived turbine noise, Neuroticism, Negative Affectivity, Frustration Intolerance, attitude to wind turbines, and NSS (response N = 138). Actual turbine noise level for each household was also calculated. There was no evidence for the effect of calculated actual noise on NSS. The relationship between perceived noise and NSS was only found for individuals high in NOP traits[, suggesting] the key role of individual differences in the link between perceived (but not actual) environmental characteristics and symptom reporting.

According to the abstract, high NOP traits are correlated only with general health complaints, as would be expected, not with perceived turbine noise or attitude to wind turbines, as the authors imply. Furthermore, actual noise measurements were not made, and small urban wind turbines are nothing like the rural giants that give rise to most complaints considered to represent "wind turbine syndrome". The authors' bias is also evident in describing "wind turbine syndrome" as "non-specific symptoms"; in fact, Pierpont recognized a recurring set of symptoms that suggest inner ear disturbance. Others have attributed the complaints as compatible with sleep disturbance, a factor that Taylor/Lawrence do not seem to have considered. The concluding sentence of the abstract also reveals bias by insisting that NOP plays the key role (not just a contributing role) and that any noise or other disturbance is perceived but not "actual".

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Update:  Crichton/Petrie and Chapman join forces:

The link between health complaints and wind turbines: support for the nocebo expectations hypothesis
Fiona Crichton, Simon Chapman, Tim Cundy and Keith James Petrie
Frontiers in Public Health, 2:220 (2014). doi:10.3389/fpubh.2014.00220

Abstract:  The worldwide expansion of wind energy has met with opposition based on concerns that the infrasound generated by wind turbines causes health problems in nearby residents. In this paper we argue that health complaints are more likely to be explained by the nocebo response, whereby adverse effects are generated by negative expectations. When individuals expect a feature of their environment or medical treatment to produce illness or symptoms then this may start a process where the individual looks for symptoms or signs of illness to confirm these negative expectations. As physical symptoms are common in healthy people, there is considerable scope for people to match symptoms with their negative expectations. To support this hypothesis we draw on evidence from experimental studies that show that, during exposure to wind farm sound, expectations about infrasound can influence symptoms and mood in both positive and negative directions, depending on how expectations are framed. We also consider epidemiological work showing that health complaints have primarily been located in areas that have received the most negative publicity about the harmful effects of turbines. The social aspect of symptom complaints in a community is also discussed as an important process in increasing symptom reports. Media stories, publicity or social discourse about the reported health effects of wind turbines are likely to trigger reports of similar symptoms, regardless of exposure. Finally, we present evidence to show that the same pattern of health complaints following negative information about wind turbines has also been found in other types of environmental concerns and scares.


Edited by: Loren Knopper, Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc., Canada, industry consultant. Reviewed by: Robert G. Berger, Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc., Canada – industry consultant – and James Rubin, King’s College London, UK – author of studies blaming electromagnetic sensitivity on psychological conditions

This article simply reviews the authors’ previous articles, repeating their errors and shortcomings and adding nothing new to what they have already badly said.

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Update:  Chapman openly joins forces with the industry:

Fomenting sickness: nocebo priming of residents about expected wind turbine health harms
Simon Chapman, Ketan Joshi and Luke Fry
Frontiers in Public Health, 2:279 (2014). doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2014.00279

Abstract:  A nocebo effect hypothesis has been proposed to explain variations in where small minorities of exposed residents complain about noise and health effects said to be caused by wind farm turbines. The hypothesis requires that those complaining have been exposed to negative, potentially frightening information about the impact of proposed wind farms on nearby residents, and that this information conditions both expectations about future health impacts or the aetiology of current health problems where wind farms are already operational. This hypothesis has been demonstrated experimentally under laboratory conditions, but case studies of how this process can operate in local communities are lacking. In this paper we present a case study of the apparent impact of an anti wind farm public meeting on the generation of negative news media and the subsequent expression of concerns about anticipated health and noise impacts to a planning authority approval hearing in Victoria, Australia. We present a content analysis of the negative claims disseminated about health and noise in the news media and available on the internet prior to the hearing, and another content analysis of all submissions made to the planning authority by those opposing the development application.

Edited by: Loren Knopper, Intrinsik Environmental Sciences, Canada – industry consultant. Reviewed by: Claire Lawrence, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom – co-author of papers blaming noise complaints from wind turbines on personality traits – and Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen, Johns Hopkins University, USA – co-author of Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection review that attempted to minimize and dismiss health effects from wind turbines

Now they have lowered the bar from denial of actual health consequences of actual wind turbines to decrying the fact that raising concerns about adverse effects of wind turbines during a permitting process meant to raise concerns, raises concerns, even though the permitting agency ignored those concerns anyway.

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Also see:  "Notorious Falshoods" — The Drapier’s Fourth Letter: To the Whole People of Ireland (Jonathan Swift, Oct. 13, 1724)

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights