Ontario researcher blows off claim anti-wind-farm activism causes Wind Turbine Syndrome

Ontario anti-wind farm activist and researcher Carmen Krogh says she’s received calls and emails from many people who are upset to hear Australian professor Simon Chapman’s claims that wind turbines don’t make people sick.

“I feel profound grief and sorrow about that,” she said. “This is upsetting already vulnerable people who are hurting.”

According to Krogh, one of the major failings of Chapman’s study is he did not base his research on the personal accounts of Wind Turbine Syndrome sufferers. When she sees people willing to abandon their homes over the issue, it is powerful proof of real suffering, she said.

Krogh, a trained pharmacist who lives in a rural area north of Ottawa, said she also experienced acute sickness from wind turbines on a vacation in Northern Ontario.

“The main thing was this feeling of general unwell. It felt like there was something wrong with my heart,” she said. “It was beating funny, and there was a vibratory sensation, a very unpleasant sensation.”

Those feelings went away shortly after she left the area, accompanied by a very severe headache, which took a few days to dissipate, she said.

It was only years later, when she heard about other people’s symptoms, that she connected the dots, she said.

Five years ago when a wind project was proposed for her area, Krogh began researching Wind Turbine Syndrome and reaching out to other people who have become ill. She said their symptoms are caused by wind turbine noise, including audible noise and inaudible infrasound. In many cases, it’s the noise and vibrations that keep people up at night, taking a serious toll on their health.

Krogh also said Chapman’s study isn’t supported by other peer-reviewed and published literature. For example, this month Grey-Bruce County’s medical officer of health Dr. Hazel Lynn presented a report on her review of 18 peer-reviewed studies, which found each of them associated human distress with wind turbines.

Health Canada is currently studying the issue and a report is expected 2014.

Fan death belief in Korea

Wind Turbine Syndrome tragedies don’t sway Chapman, because health beliefs are strongly rooted in culture, he said. For example, “Fan Death,” a widely held belief in Korea that ordinary household fans, if left on overnight, can kill people, he said. Fans are sold with timers that turn them off and police and media report deaths by fan.

“I’m prepared to believe that if you went to Korea, stayed in the houses of people who have fans, they would look you in the eye and say these thing can be fatal if you run them all night,” he said.

Wind Turbine Syndrome, like fan death, is culturally rooted, even though there are turbines all over the world, said Chapman. “This (Wind Turbine Syndrome) phenomenon tends to be concentrated in Ontario, the United Kingdom, Ireland, parts of Australia and New Zealand and pockets of it in the United States,” he said. “Apparently this is a disease that only speaks English.”