“Health Canada Announces Wind Turbine Noise & Health Study” (Canada)
Jul 12, 2012
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Editor: The following is taken from the Health Canada website. Click here. For a news release on the research design, click here. For official “Questions & Answers,” click here. For Health Canada’s notice to “stakeholders,” click here. For Health Canada’s list of the research “working group,” click here. For lots of Canadian media coverage of this event, do a Google “search.”
For the real story on what wind turbines do to people’s health, click here.
For naively imagining this study is going to be anything other than political theater and a whitewash, pinch yourself here.
July 10, 2012
OTTAWA—Health Canada, in collaboration with Statistics Canada, will conduct a research study that will explore the relationship between wind turbine noise and health effects reported by, and objectively measured in, people living near wind power developments.
“This study is in response to questions from residents living near wind farms about possible health effects of low frequency noise generated by wind turbines,” said the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health. “As always, our Government is putting the health and safety of Canadians first and this study will do just that by painting a more complete picture of the potential health impacts of wind turbine noise.”
Health Canada is aware of health-related complaints from individuals living in close proximity to wind turbine establishments. The study is being designed with support from external experts, specializing in areas including noise, health assessment, clinical medicine and epidemiology.
The proposed research design and methodology was posted on Health Canada’s web site today for a 30-day public comment period. Feedback obtained will be reviewed by the design committee, compiled and published to the website, along with the design committee’s responses.
The study will be focused on an initially targeted sample size of 2,000 dwellings selected from 8-12 wind turbine installation facilities in Canada. In addition to taking physical measurements from participants, such as blood pressure, investigators will conduct face-to-face interviews and take noise measurements inside and outside of some homes to validate sound modelling.
Health Canada has expertise in measuring noise and assessing the health impacts of noise because of its role in administering the Radiation Emitting Devices Act (REDA). As defined under REDA, noise is a form of radiation.
The study results are expected to be published in 2014.
Media Enquiries:
Health Canada
(613) 957-2983
Cailin Rodgers
Office of the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq
Federal Minister of Health
(613) 957-0200
Public Enquiries:
(613) 957-2991
1-866 225-0709
Comment by preston mcclanahan on 07/12/2012 at 9:16 pm
In the face of the incontrovertible facts and proven evidence, why would anyone believe that wind is an energy solution? Either there is payoff and kickbacks involved, or there are career moves (short term) to be had, or the believer is uninformed or just plain dumb, or has stars in their eyes.
Comment by robert mcmurtry on 07/13/2012 at 11:28 am
1. Good news the research IS needed and we (I) have been asking for 4 years.
2. The need for research acknowledges there are knowledge gaps and therefore a moratorium on construction of IWT is required until we can develop evidence-based guidelines. Currently the evidence does not exist as to how to protect human health other than large setbacks (2-10 km depending on the size and number of turbines).
3. Health Canada is NOT the agency to be doing the reserch. They are regulatory and have very limited research capacity. Furthermore they are on record as supporting wind energy. This is too important a question to be addressed by science bureaucrats.
The research should be conducted by CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) which is the top health research agency in Canada. BTW they also report to the Minister of Health Aglukkaq.
Bob
Editor’s note: The writer is Dr. Robert McMurtry, Canada’s leading physician dealing with Wind Turbine Syndrome and all its fallout.
Comment by thebiggreenlie on 07/13/2012 at 2:33 pm
Agreed!……….2 years of study and then produce a “report”! Meanwhile, thousands of idiotic monstrosities go into the rural landscapes and, at the end of it all, what happens when the so-called “health study” declares that wind turbines cause illnesses—which of course we all know they do!
Why have things gone so sadly backward that people feel they need the approval or disapproval of their own elected officials before they have the spine and wherewithal to actually protect themselves and their families from harm?
This is nothing more than “controlled opposition,” and if anyone even thinks this study is a step forward then they too are part of the problem, not the solution!
Comment by sherri Lange on 07/13/2012 at 4:52 pm
We clearly need a complete halt to projects proposed and pending, including transmission lines. The study report by Health Can actually uses the words “continued success of wind power” in Canada…oops. Is that bias already??? No government-sponsored or funded study to date has been proven to lack substantial bias. Protection of the health of people is really pathetically lacking everywhere. That is the power of the industry. But what they might now be getting an inkling of is the power of several MILLION people around the world who are, as one protester in New Bruswick said the other day, HOSTILE.
What the call for the study does do is acknowledge a problem.
Sherri
Editor’s comment: I don’t think the study acknowledges a problem, unless you acknowledge that the only problem being acknowledged is the hostility of many people. That is, the study acknowledges a political embarrassment, not a health problem. Health doesn’t really matter, here. When the drumbeat of Global Warming is sounded, health be damned! Besides, there are enough wind shill physicists and acousticians and noise engineers and even medical doctors who are very willing to say, “It’s all in their heads!” And if it makes it more compelling, they’re more than happy to cloak “it’s all in their heads” with scientific jargon and publish in one of their phony “peer reviewed” journals—reviewed by one of their bozo pals.
Sherri, do you see Dr. Pierpont on the roster of the “working group”? Or Dr. Alec Salt? Or Dr. Robert McMurtry? Or Dr. Nissenbaum? Or Dr. Christopher Hanning? Or Dr. Carl Philips? Or Dr. Sarah Laurie? Does that give you a clue? Think “f-r-a-u-d.”
Comment by Tom Blacksmith on 07/14/2012 at 6:21 am
The wind agenda is nothing more than a massive racket. We don’t need them and they will not save us from anything more than an illusion.
That’s the point that needs to be driven home. A health study is just a red herring. I hope people are smart enough to see that.
Comment by sherri lange on 07/15/2012 at 3:32 pm
Reply to editor
Yes, that is exactly what is being expressed to the media: that the absence of the practitioners, acousticians, sound experts, Nina, Alec, Carl, Bob and the long long list, is what we are all commenting on every day. We absolutely know that this study is a farce. The study report actually uses the words, “continued success” of the wind industry!!!!
Stay tuned for a new press release and action Monday, Tuesday. This will not be as they expect.
Sherri
Comment by Shane on 07/22/2012 at 8:41 pm
Funny, the wind proponents also expect the study to be “political theatre and whitewash” – their feeling is that the federal Conservatives are undertaking the study in order to gain votes in rural Ontario by appealing to wind opponents. Generally, the sense is that Conservatives are opposed to the implementation of wind energy. So would the CIHR be more likely to find evidence of harm? Well, wiki says “CIHR is managed by the Prime Minister and the Governing Council, who are assisted by various Standing and Advisory Committees. The current appointed president of CIHR is Dr. Alain Beaudet.” Green proponents are unlikely to see a neutral party in an appointee of Mr Harper running an institute “managed” by Mr Harper. Face it, we cannot possibly avoid the politics at this point, and ultimately it probably doesn’t matter what the science says – what matters is what the voters, pundits, lobbyists, back room boys, and the newspapers say… and then, perhaps, the laws. Politics from start to finish.
Comment by Itasca Small on 09/13/2012 at 1:48 am
Thanks to Dr. McMurtry for his efforts on behalf of wind energy victims and potential victims. For the record, 10km is not sufficient to protect humans and animals from industrial wind turbines. Given the right conditions adverse health effects and even vibrational damage to a geodesic dome house occur at least approximately 11-13 miles in at least two directions from 2.2MW IWTs in Navajo County, Arizona. I am writing this at my sister’s home about 150 miles from my own home of 21 years because I have to escape the insidious effects from the Dry Lake Wind Power Plant owned by Iberdrola Renewables in cahoots with local rancher, Mr. Billy Elkins and enabled by Navajo County Government. I am not the only long-distance victim. The geodesic dome is not mine and it is about 11.25 miles SE of the IWTs, while my very small community is about 10.25 – 13 miles W to WSW of them. My weak adrenal glands have been affected to the brink of Addison’s Disease by the IWTs and I don’t know where I am going to live to escape the extreme sensitivity I now have to a very broad spectrum of sound waves. I have records correlating my worsened symptoms to weather conditions and the IWTs.