The Nocebo Effect & Wind Turbines
I’ve been trying to track down the Australian stuff re wind turbine syndrome and the nocebo effect and found this quote
The 2009 American Wind Energy Association and Canadian Wind Energy Association study investigated the nocebo affect concluding that: “the large volume of media coverage devoted to alleged adverse health effects of wind turbines understandably creates an anticipatory fear in some that they will experience adverse effects from wind turbines. Every person is suggestible to some degree. The resulting stress, fear, and hyper‐vigilance may exacerbate or even create problems which would not otherwise exist. In this way, anti‐wind farm activists may be creating with their publicity some of the problems that they describe.”
I enclose the paper I found with further refs:
Wind Turbine Sound Fact Sheet – wind_turbine_sound_FactSheet
Further to the above I have now found coverage of the Australian study I was thinking of that showed much better links between “wind turbine syndrome” and the activities of anti groups than with wind turbines themselves. As well as this further indication of the dangers of the nocebo effect and the irresponsibility of anti-wind farm scaremongering I think it is worth taking notice of the story of the gentleman given at the end who was suffering badly. His house was within 3.5km of 17 turbines that were part of a 160 turbine scheme. Now I would suggest that his symptoms were still the result of the nocebo effect but this does not mean that he was not suffering. Furthermore it is not reasonable to expect people to be happy about that sort of concentration of turbines near their homes and it is terrible that his plight is made worse by the activities of those pretending to be his friends in the anti-camp. It is only by accepting small wind farms of less than 10 turbines in lots of places so that everyone has a few close to them if they are lucky enough to live in a rural area with a good wind resource that we can ensure that people are not subjected to these mega farms except in places like the wildest parts of Scotland where there are no communities to be bothered by them. It is the actions of the antis, once more, in hijacking the planning process, that make it uneconomic to apply for just a few turbines so increasing the likelihood that turbines will be built instead by the score in mega farms.
Here’s the link to the article reporting the research
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/15/windfarm-sickness-spread-word-australia