Wind farms are springing up everywhere, but are they bad for your health? Health Editor Barry Nelson, who lives near a proposed wind farm site, weighs up the arguments.
LOVE them or loath them, we could be seeing a lot more giant wind turbines in the North-East as the UK tries to reduce its reliability on fossil fuels. But are we storing up health problems for the future?
Campaigners against wind farms claim the vibrations produced by wind turbines can harm health, but the industry says there is no proof of this.
So far, 25 wind farms have been built or approved in the North-East and North Yorkshire, with at least another 13 proposed.
The Government is keen to see more wind farms as a way of meeting the UK’s commitment to reducing our carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
And the wind farm industry has responded by setting 219 wind farms across Britain, so far.
Generating “clean” electricity, wind farms are already making a small, but significant, contribution to meeting UK energy needs.
But a growing groundswell of local opposition could stop this apparently relentless expansion in its tracks, and the North-East is becoming one of the key battlegrounds in this increasingly bitter struggle.
A conference in Darlington this year will act as a platform for campaigners who are determined to curb the expansion of wind farms.
The event is organised by Trish Pemberton, chairwoman of the Bolam Area Action Group, which opposes plans for a seven-turbine wind farm near the small County Durham village.
Mrs Pemberton is concerned that wind farms are “coming closer and closer to people’s homes and getting taller and taller”.
Apart from criticisms that wind farms are a blot on the landscape and are not an efficient alternative to burning fossil fuels, campaigners are increasingly emphasising concerns that these giant windmills, which can be the same height as a 40-storey office block, could constitute a health hazard.
They say there is evidence that noise, low-frequency vibrations and flickering shadows created by giant wind turbines can cause serious health problems for those living nearby.
The wind farm industry dismisses these claims as “bad science”, like the MMR vaccine scare, and insists there is no hard evidence that wind turbines can have an adverse affect on health.
But campaigners are convinced of their case and are now pushing for the Government to introduce a law that will mean new wind turbines must be at least 2km away from homes.
But what evidence do campaigners have for their claims? A recent report by Dr Chris Hanning, an expert in sleep medicine and sleep physiology, is a good place to start.
Dr Hanning, who founded one of the largest NHS hospital services of its kind in the UK, in Leicester, carried out a critical review of more than 40 international reports into the impact of wind farm noise.
Published last summer on behalf of the Stop Swinford Wind Farm Action Group, in Leicestershire, his report concluded: “In my expert opinion, from my knowledge of sleep physiology and a review of the available research, I have no doubt that wind turbine noise emissions cause sleep disturbance and ill-health.”
Dr Hanning adds: “There can be no doubt that groups of industrial wind turbines generate sufficient noise to disturb the sleep and impair the health of those living nearby.”
In fact, he noted that families whose homes were about 900m from wind turbines (just over half a mile) said that the noise, sleep disturbance and ill-health eventually drove them from their homes.
The retired consultant adds that inadequate sleep has been associated not just with fatigue, sleepiness and an impairment of thought processes, but also with an increased risk of obesity, impaired glucose tolerance (risk of diabetes), high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and depression.
He pointed to a survey of 42 people living near wind turbines carried out in 2007 by a GP, Dr Amanda Harry. The study showed that 81 per cent of respondents felt that their health had been affected, 76 per cent of them had seen a doctor as a result and 73 per cent felt their quality of life had suffered.
Dr Hanning said this indicated “strongly”
that some people are “severely affected by wind turbines at distances thought by the industry to be safe”.
He is also impressed by a report by Dr Nina Pierpont, an American paediatrician who studied ten families who fled their homes because of wind turbine noise.
Dr Pierpont found that the symptoms described by the respondents stopped once they had moved away from the turbine.
Dr Pierpont found that all the adult subjects reported “feeling jittery inside” or “internal quivering” often accompanied by anxiety, fearfulness, sleep disturbance and irritability.
The children also suffered changes in sleep pattern and diminished academic performance.
For Dr Hanning, her report “convincingly shows that wind turbine noise does cause the symptoms of wind turbine syndrome, including sleep disturbance”.
Dr Pierpont concludes by calling for further research – and a minimum distance of 2km between homes and wind turbines.
ANOTHER group of doctors in the US – from Maine – also highlighted the problem of “shadow flicker” from wind turbines contributing to serious health problems, including sleep disturbance, headaches, dizziness, weight changes, possible increases in blood pressure and increased prescription medicine use.
But Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, strongly disputes these claims.
In a statement originally published by The Independent newspaper, Ms McCaffery said: “Wind turbines are safe. That is the conclusion of every reputable scientific study conducted into the impact of wind turbines on human health, based on a range of international research.”
She points to a 2004 World Health Organisation report which showed that wind power was one of the most benign ways of generating electricity in terms of direct and indirect health effects.
An independent study on wind farms and noise in 2007 found only four complaints from about 2,000 turbines in the UK.
Ms McCaffery said Dr Pierpont’s findings had not been through any process of independent review by recognised experts in the field, and that until her work is published in a reputable medical journal, “it will be hard to view her allegations as anything other than yet another scare story peddled by the opponents of wind power”.
She insists that the energy debate “must be based on facts, not myths”.
One thing is certain, we have not heard the last of this great debate.
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