Showing posts with label Wind Turbine Syndrome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wind Turbine Syndrome. Show all posts

February 17, 2010

Pierpont, peer review, and expert witnesses

If I may jump in here as an editor of medical journals, I would just like to note that single case reports and case series are a major part of their content. That is how information is shared. When the authors are noticing something new (or more often, noticing something in a new way), they are clear about the limitations of a case series for making conclusive statements. For example, this is from an article I read last week about a new surgical technique:
It is important to note that there are limitations to our study, primarily because it is a case series. Therefore, we have no comparison group and there may be selection bias, though we attempted to minimize this by reviewing our entire endoscopic database and selecting all patients who underwent this procedure, not just a subset. Although this is the largest series presented to date, it still comprises only 12 patients, all of whom were seen at a single GI referral center with expertise in esophageal dilation and treatment of esophageal strictures. Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other settings.
Those "limitations" did not prevent it from being published in a peer-reviewed journal. They are normal.

Nina Pierpont notes the limitations of her work (pp. 124-125): interview-only and limited medical records, comparison by memory, inaccurate reporting by subjects, English-only, small sample, limited follow-up. (She also describes how she endeavored to minimize each these effects.) On page 123, she notes the research that needs to be done to more definitively describe the syndrome, risk factors, and mechanisms. (Another limitation, mentioned in the text (p. 39-40), is that "participation by Americans was limited by non-medical factors such as turbine leases or neighbor contracts prohibiting criticism, court decisions restricting criticism of turbine projects, and community relationships".)

It is important to note that authors typically suggest the reviewers for their papers. It is not adversarial, as detractors seem to imply. Successful peer review just means you've been able to hold up your end of the conversation, not that you've slain all skeptics. It is more a process of refining the paper, as I believe Pierpont did with her panel of reviewers (and why in part it took so long to get into print), whose reports are on pp. 287-292. In turn, most journals also include a lively letters section in which the real peer review is shown to begin after publication.

Choosing the most effective expert witness must of course be done according to each case's focus and strategy, but I dare say, opposing counsel would have a lot harder time undercutting Pierpont's work than they would that of most "peer-reviewed experts".

In other words, "peer reviewed" is not a defense. Conversely, lack of one form of peer review (that for journal publication) is not much of a charge. A court room is perhaps the ultimate peer review.

These comments are in response to some of the reactions to Wind Turbine Syndrome that have been written. There is no question of WTS, whether you call it that or not. There remain questions of mechanism, but not of cause. And determining its extent and risk requires large epidemiologic studies. These are not criticisms. Pierpont says them herself. That is the process of science.

If only more people in power were so skeptical about wind industry claims!

November 1, 2009

Canadian wind industry's cynical dismissal of health concerns

Deconstructing CanWEA Health “Research”

On October 6, 2008, the industry trade group Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) posted a press release titled “Scientists conclude that there is no evidence that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health” in response to news coverage of Dr. Nina Pierpont's work describing and explaining "wind turbine syndrome", stating:
[T]he Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) has compiled a list of articles and publications on the subject from reputable sources in Europe and North America. ...

These findings clearly show that there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence indicating that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health.
In May, Wind Concerns Ontario reviewed the seven articles cited by CanWEA, asking the following questions:
  • Do they support the claim in the title of CanWEA’s press release?
  • Do they support the conclusion of CanWEA’s press release?
  • Do they refute Dr. Pierpont’s research?
None of the articles “conclude that there is no evidence that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health”.

None of the articles state that “there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence indicating that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health.”.

None of the articles review Pierpont’s research.

Only one article mentions Pierpont’s case studies, stating that “One cannot discount the information”.

Six of the articles identify wind turbine noise as a health concern which must be considered.

Only one of the articles discusses noise in the assessment of adverse health effects related to various forms of electricity generation.

None of the articles study patients or reports of patients describing adverse health effects when exposed to wind turbines.

None of the articles consider recent research in addition to Pierpont's regarding health effects related to wind turbines.

The seven articles are:
  1. Infrasound from wind turbines – fact, fiction or deception. Geoff Leventhall (noise and vibration consultant). Canadian Acoustics 2006;24(2):29-36.
  2. Wind turbine facilities noise issues. Ramani Ramakrishnan (acoustician); prepared for Ministry of the Environment of Ontario. Aiolos report no. 4071/2180/AR155Rev3 (Dec 2007).
  3. Wind turbine acoustic noise. Anthony Rogers (mechanical engineer), James Manwell (mechanical engineer), Sally Wright (mechanical engineer), Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. June 2002, amended Jan. 2006.
  4. Research into aerodynamic modulation of wind turbine noise. Andy Moorhouse (acoustician), Malcolm Hayes (acoustics student), Sabine von Hünerbein (acoustician), Ben Piper, Mags Adams (social scientist), University of Salford; prepared for Dept. for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, contract no. NANR233. July 2007.
  5. Electricity generation and health. Anil Markandya (economist), Paul Wilkinson. Lancet 2007 (Sep. 15);370(9591):979-990.
  6. The health impact of wind turbines: a review of the current white, grey, and published literature. David Colby (MD), Acting Medical Officer of Health, Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit; prepared for Chatham-Kent Municipal Council. June 2008.
  7. Energy, sustainable development and health (background document, Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health). Anil Markandya (economist) et al. (no MDs). June 3, 2004.
Also posted at Wind Concerns Ontario is an assessment of CanWEA's press release by Wayne Gulden of Amherst Island Wind Information. (Gulden also analyzed the Chatham-Kent review, as did Dr. Robert McMurtry.)
CanWEA has included a quote from each of these sources that appears to support their contention. As any reader will quickly discover, however, these quotes generally have little to do with the gist of the article. It quickly becomes obvious that CanWEA has “cherry-picked” the articles for the most supportive sentence, completely out of context.

Anyone can play this game, and as an example I could take The Doctors’ position and use quotes out of the very same 7 references to support it. Such a statement might look something like:
There are numerous reports of health issues caused by wind turbines and we want to have an epidemiological study to determine the facts. We have compiled a list of articles and publications on the subject from reputable sources in Europe and North America.

1. Leventhall. “Attention should be focused on the audio frequency fluctuating swish, which some people may well find to be very disturbing and stressful, depending on its level.”

2. Ramakrishnan. “However, additional concerns still need to be addressed in the next round of revisions to their assessment process. These revisions may need to be addressed after the results from future research provide scientifically consistent data for effects such as meteorology, human response and turbine noise source character.”

3. Rogers. “Community noise standards are important to ensure livable communities. Wind turbines must be held to comply with these regulations.”

4. Salford. “The results showed that 27 of the 133 windfarm sites operational across the UK at the time of the survey had attracted noise complaints at some point.”

5. Lancet. “In varying degrees these [renewable] sources share four main drawbacks: ... and environmental effects, aesthetic effects, or both, that might in part off set the broader environmental and health gains derived from lower air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions.”

6. Colby. “Despite extensive searching of the current literature, limited information is available on health concerns relating to wind turbines.”

7. WHO. “[H]ealth effects from wind energy are negligible, however issues such as sleep disturbance, school absenteeism, eventually resulting from noise in vicinity, could not be evaluated.”
Why don’t they? Aside from the time constraints of not having their livelihoods supplied by the wind energy industry, they have a different set of priorities. CanWEA’s main interest, perhaps their only interest, is making money for their clients and themselves.

With that goal, the appearance of being truthful is far more important that actually being truthful. The Doctors, on the other hand, deal with real people having real health issues,and the real truth is the basis of how they deal. And the real truth being conveyed by these seven references – most of which are, as CanWEA says, respectable – has very little to do with health issues and epidemiological studies for people living in the shadow of wind turbines.

To use these otherwise useful references in this way is fundamentally dishonest, but it creates a “he said, she said” confusion that serves the interests of the industry.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights

September 9, 2009

Adverse health effects from wind turbines in Sweden and the Netherlands

Two noise surveys from Europe are frequently cited by energy industry defenders as evidence that there are no ill health effects found in people living near industrial wind turbines. The applicability of these surveys to most proposed and recently built facilities, however, is very limited. And in fact, their findings of significant annoyance at low sound levels and small relatively turbines suggest reason for concern. Annoyance from noise, by the way, is an adverse health effect, according to the World Health Organization ("Guidelines for Community Noise", 1999), as is disturbed sleep, which can lead to many physical and psychological symptoms.

The survey from Sweden is: Pedersen and Persson Waye, 2007, "Wind turbine noise, annoyance and self-reported health and wellbeing in different living environments", Occupational and Environmental Medicine 64 (7): 480-486. The survey from the Netherlands is: Van den Berg, Pedersen, Bouma, and Bakker, Project WINDFARMperception, 2008, "Visual and acoustic impact of wind turbine farms on residents", FP6-2005-Science-and-Society-20 project no. 044628. Nina Pierpont provides a medical critique of the latter study on pages 111-118 of her book Wind Turbine Syndrome. Note that none of the survey authors are physicians, and neither the design of nor the conclusions from the surveys are reliable medically.

Here, I will simply describe what these surveys found and why they are not very relevant to current debates about wind turbine siting near homes. The general aim is to minimize the increase of noise, especially at night inside people's bedrooms. The World Health Organization says that the noise level at night inside a bedroom should not exceed 30 dB(A) and that to ensure that level, the noise 1 meter away from the house should not exceed 45 dB(A). Ontario requires that the noise level 30 meters from the house should not exceed 40 dB(A).

In the Swedish survey (Pedersen and Persson Waye, 2007), the average sound level estimated at the respondents' homes was 33.4 ± 3.0 dBA. The average distance from the turbines was 780 ± 233 m (2,559 ± 764 ft), and facilities of turbines down to 500 kW in size were included.

In the Dutch survey (Van den Berg et al., 2008), only 26% of the turbines were 1.5 MW or above, and 66% of them were smaller than 1 MW. Only 9% of the respondents lived with an estimated noise level from the turbines of more than 45 dB.

With such little exposure to potentially disturbing noise, it would be surprising indeed to find much health effect. And just so are they quoted. For example, from Pedersen and Persson Waye: "A-weighted SPL [sound pressure level] was not correlated to any of the health factors or factors of wellbeing asked for in the questionnaire"; "In our study no adverse health effects other than annoyance could be directly connected to wind turbine noise".

But note that they did find a substantial level of annoyance, especially in rural areas and hilly terrain, and, as they note, "Annoyance is an adverse heath effect." And: "Annoyance was further associated with lowered sleep quality and negative emotions. This, together with reduced restoration possibilities may adversely affect health."

And from Van den Berg et al.: "There is no indication that the sound from wind turbines had an effect on respondents’ health ...".

The elided part of the sentence is: "except for the interruption of sleep".

Again, they found a substantial level of sleep disturbance and annoyance. They note: "From this study it cannot be concluded whether these health effects are caused by annoyance or vice versa or whether both are related to another factor" (such as low-frequency noise). In other words, the data are inadequate for making any statement regarding health effects (and remember, annoyance, along with interruption of sleep, is a health effect). "Annoyance with wind turbine noise was associated with psychological distress, stress, difficulties to fall asleep and sleep interruption." "From this and previous studies it appears that sound from wind turbines is relatively annoying: at the same sound level it causes more annoyance than sound from air or road traffic."

In conclusion, even in the low-impact situations surveyed in these studies (small turbines, setbacks large enough to ensure low A-weighted noise levels), health effects, particularly due to annoyance and sleep disturbance, were seen. With larger turbines and facilities and smaller setbacks from homes, adverse health effects would clearly be expected to affect more people and to a greater degree.

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

August 23, 2009

More absence of wind turbine noise and health complaints

Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) reports that, "According to the land registry office in Orangeville, six homes in Dufferin County have been purchased by wind developers. ... Before these families could escape the nightmare of their unliveable homes, they had to agree to sign strict nondisclosure contracts -- in other words, gag orders -- to protect the wind companies. [Canadian Hydro Developers] has spent over $1.75 million dollars clandestinely buying out these people, yet they claim there were no complaints."

Family Name Address
Ashbee Pt Lt 29, Con 7, Pt 1, 7R742, Amaranth
Fraser 58234 County Rd 17, Melancthon
Benvenete Pt Lts 284 & 285, Con 4, Melancthon
Brownell Pt Lt 29, Con 5, Pt 1, 7R787, Amaranth
Williams 58232 County Rd, RR 6, Melancthon
Barlows Pt Lt 1, Con 5, Melancthon

As WCO notes, "Their homes became unfit for human habitation. The purchases by the wind developer are an admission that wind turbines have created health issues that affect residents. Unfortunately, the wind industry and the McGuinty government have failed to publicly acknowledge or act on health issues and the pleas for help from the families affected."

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

May 11, 2009

Toronto Star attacks citizens, shills for industrial development

In an article in today's Toronto Star ("Noise protesters howling about windfarms"), Tyler Hamilton reports:
At the moment, however, there's no convincing evidence that wind turbines located a few hundred metres from a dwelling negatively effect health, [Energy and Infrastructure Minister George] Smitherman said. A 2008 epidemiological study and survey, financed by the European Union, generally supports that view.

Researchers from Holland's University of Groningen and Gothenburg University in Sweden conducted a mail-in survey of 725 rural Dutch residents living 17 metres to 2.1 kilometres from the nearest wind turbine.

The survey received 268 responses and, while most acknowledged hearing the "swishing" sound that wind turbines make, the vast majority – 92 per cent – said they were "satisfied" with their living environment.
That survey is available here. Only 26% of the nearby turbines were 1.5 MW or above, and 66% of them were smaller than 1 MW -- whereas the turbines being built now are typically 2-2.5 MW. Furthermore, only 9% of the respondents lived with an estimated noise level from the turbines of more than 45 dB, which is the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organization to ensure that the inside level is 30 dB as required for sleeping.

In other words, the survey does not in fact support the view that the turbines being built in Ontario should not be farther from people's homes.

Small wind energy expert Paul Gipe writes in the comments to the article:
There are 74,000 wind turbines in Europe, some 5,600 in Denmark alone. And contrary to many myths, the Danes, German, French, Spanish and others are continue to install thousands more every year.
Again, most of the turbines in Denmark are half the size of those being installed today. And it is a simple fact that Denmark has not added any new wind capacity since 2003. (See Danish Wind Energy Association.) Meanwhile the Spanish industry ministry just last week issued changes to limit the expansion of wind energy. Germany's wind still represents less than 10% of production, and France is just starting to push big wind. People are pushing back in all of these places: see the European Platform Against Windpower.

Finally, the reporter of the Star article, while readily questioning the direct testimony of dozens of individuals about the health effects of wind turbine noise, mentions without question "the positive environmental role that wind power plays in the battle against climate change and air pollution". Where is the data showing this? Where is this reporter's skepticism about that side of the story?

Wind industry advocates like to note, for example, that from 1990 to 2006, Germany's CO2 emissions decreased 13.7% (click here for the latest international data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy). Most of that, however, appears to be due to cleaning things up after the unification of east and west. From 1998, when industrial wind energy began to be installed in earnest, CO2 emissions decreased only 1.6%. Considering just Germany's extensive effort to insulate roofs, that figure doesn't suggest much benefit coming from big wind.

In part 2 of this article, published the next day, Hamilton writes about Denmark, "In some years, when CO2 emissions rise slightly, it has little to do with wind." Yet without embarrassment, he presents any drop in emissions as having everything to do with wind! In fact, Danish energy trade, and thus domestic CO2 emissions, varies dramatically year to year. In the same table cited in the preceding paragraph, we see that emissions decreased 16.3% from 2003 to 2005, although no new wind capacity was added in that period. From 2002 to 2003, the last year that wind capacity was added, emissions increased 16.2%.

Again, it is hardly courageous to avoid questioning those with power and to only attack those without.

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