Report on June 5^th ERT Hearing on Human Health Appeal
by
Henri Garand

The Environmental Review Tribunal heard Ministry of Environment (MOE) witness Dr. Kieran Moore, independent presenter Dr. Alban Goddard-Hill, and Gilead Power witness Dr. Werner Richarz.

Qualifying of Dr. Kieran Moore

Dr. Kieran Moore is the associate medical officer of public health for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington.  He is also an associate professor in emergency medicine at Queen’s University.  He has not carried out research on industrial wind turbines (IWTs), but he said he keeps up to date on the scientific literature because of the Wolfe Island wind project.

There were no objections to Dr. Moore being qualified as a “physician with expertise in family and emergency medicine, public health, and preventive medicine.”

Examination of Dr. Kieran Moore

Dr. Moore noted that as the medical records of APPEC’s witnesses do not provide a complete exposure history, diagnostic errors could easily occur.  He said further complications can arise from patient bias, drug interactions, and fluctuating chronic conditions such as depression and fibromyalgia.  Referring to three patients, he commented on the difficulty of diagnosis but suggested alternative explanations for their insomnia, which he said, in any event, is prevalent in the general population.

Dr. Moore supports the findings in the report by Dr. Arlene King, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, that IWTs are a not a cause of direct adverse health effects.  He outlined the Bradford-Hill criteria for causation and said these are difficult to apply because a biologically plausible pathway for IWTs is unknown and IWTs are reported to have multiple effects rather than a single health effect.   He called Dr. McMurty’s case definition a “hypothetical syndrome” in which third-order criteria include many conditions present in a large population.  He said annoyance is “a normal state, not a disease,” and he suggested that it may be due, not to noise, but simply to hearing and seeing IWTs.

Dr. Moore compared “harm to human health” to a pyramid in which death is at the top, fatal diseases and permanent chronic diseases below, and so on.  He said serious harm is irreversible.  He also questioned the World Health Organization’s definition of health (”complete sense of well-being”) as “unrealistic”; he preferred “resilience to stress.”

The Precautionary Principle, according to Dr. Moore, cannot be used for IWTs because there are no significant health effects and no certainty of causation.  The MOE’s compliance protocol is a sufficient precaution.

Cross-examination of Dr. Moore

Gilead Power lawyer Bryn Gray had no questions.

APPEC lawyer Eric Gillespie confirmed that (1) Dr. Moore had reviewed only the witness statements and medical records, not transcripts of testimonies, (2) no “exposure history” is documented, and (3) Dr. Moore had made no diagnoses.

ERT Panel Questions

Co-chair Robert Wright asked for clarification on the Precautionary Principle.  Dr. Moore said that it required adequate evidence of causation and high probability of significant harm.

Mr. Wright also asked about direct effects of IWTs located on Crown land to which the public has access.   Dr. Moore said signs might warn people of the risks.

Co-chair Heather Gibbs asked about indirect pathways such as sleep deprivation causing adverse health effects.  Dr. Moore said that sleep disorders are common and IWTs would cause no problems because of current noise limits and setbacks.

Presentation of Dr. Alban Goddard-Hill

Dr. Goddard-Hill was qualified as a “physician in general practice and family medicine.”

Dr. Goddard-Hill noted that reports of sleep disorders are increasing in Ontario and that sleep problems can lead to a wide range of physiological and psychological effects.  He said that IWTs would cause sleep deprivation in some people, with potentially fatal consequences.  He referred to articles in an appendix to his written presentation that linked sleep deprivation to drowsiness in drivers and to fatal motor accidents.

Examination of Dr. Werner Richarz

Dr. Richarz provided a primer on acoustics and IWTs.  The A-weighted measurement scale is a convenient way to mimic human perception of sound.  Sound is attenuated by distance and atmospheric conditions, as well as by the absorption of vegetation, ground, and structural barriers.  Infrasound is at the frequency range below 20 Hz (hertz), and it is not audible at 550 m.  Low-frequency noise (LFN) is defined as 10-100 or 20-200 Hz.

The noise from IWTs is both mechanical (e.g. from gears and generators) and aerodynamic (from the rotating blades and atmospheric airflow, or turbulence).
Amplitude modulation is usually small and not perceptible: one dBA, 1% of the time.  The “swoosh” sound comes from broadband noise that rises and diminishes.  Newer turbines have smoother operation.

Dr. Richarz considered three studies of turbine noise.  He said that tests at witness Nicole Horton’s house show the turbines are in compliance.  The study at the Shirley, Wisconsin, wind project may have identified peaks of LFN, but these were not audible and LFN is “not a serious issue” for health.  The results in Dr. Thorne’s study of turbine noise suggest that other sounds had contaminated the measurements.

Dr. Richarz concluded that the Ostrander Point project poses little harm because the area is sparsely settled and residents would not be exposed to more than 40 dBA of noise.

Report on June 4th ERT Hearing on Human Health Appeal
by
Paula Peel

The Ministry of the Environment’s (MOE) case continued with the Environmental Review Tribunal hearing the full testimony of Dr. Cornelia Baines.  Gilead Power witness Dr. Werner Richarz was qualified to give testimony.

Qualifying of Dr. Baines

Dr. Baines is Professor Emeritus at the Epidemiology Division of the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto.  For the past thirty years Dr. Baines has researched the efficiency of breast cancer screening.

Dr. Baines confirmed that she is not an expert in wind turbines, in acoustics, or in sleep disturbances, tinnitus, ear pressure, headaches or any other medical symptoms that form the central case for the appellant.   Dr. Baines has done no epidemiological study of health effects related to wind turbines.  Dr. Baines has not been a practicing physician since the early 1980s.

APPEC lawyer Eric Gillespie submitted evidence relating to Dr. Baines’ testimony at the Chatham-Kent ERT, including a presentation to the Executive Committee of the City of Toronto in April 2010 and a letter to  the Guelph Mercury, also in April 2010, where Dr. Baines asserts there is no evidence of adverse effect on health.  Dr. Baines said that her view has not changed.

Dr. Baines was qualified as a physician epidemiologist with expertise in the design, measurement and evaluation of research studies.

Examination of Dr. Baines

Dr. Baines gave various reasons why there is no evidence of a causal effect between wind turbines and exposed populations:

•        Symptoms preceding wind turbines, either because of suggestion or worry.

•        Constancy, where only 1 in well over 200 people have complained.

•        Biological plausibility: unlikely such a wide range of symptoms caused by a single source.

•        Reversibility in effects reported.  Suggestibility comes into play:  If you believe wind turbines are making you ill and you leave, there will be psychogenetic benefit to counteract psychogenic harm.

•        Small sample sizes in Dr. Nissenbaum’s study and others.  These render it difficult to produce compelling conclusions.

Dr. Baines considers that the association of symptoms with wind turbines is not strong based on the prevalence of the same symptoms in the general population.  According to a New Yorker article, more than 50% of people aged 13-64 experience sleep problems.   A U.S. study found that 1 out of 3 people over age 51 complain of fatigue.  In Canada, 6.4 million people over the age of 15 report a lot of stress in their lives.

Dr. Baines believes that age may contribute to symptoms, such as aching bones, tinnitus, and heart palpitations, experienced by people bothered by wind turbines.  Dr. Baines noted that in the questionnaires provided to the MOE people over 40 reported 80% of the symptoms.

Dr. Baines considers that Dr. Robert McMurtry’s study is very preliminary, the methodology is unsound, and the manner in which the case study was developed does not meet appropriate standards.  She identified two problems with Dr. Robert Thorne’s study:  the overall small sample size and the diverse sample composition.

Dr. Baines concludes that no evidence shows wind turbines cause harm to health.

Cross-examination of Dr. Baines

Mr. Gillespie asked Dr. Baines whether it was fair to say that virtually all the symptoms she looked at were irrelevant in terms of APPEC’s case and whether she was aware that neither Dr. McMurtry nor Dr. Thorne referred in their testimony to “wind turbine syndrome”.   Dr. Baines considers that the 200+ symptoms identified by Simon Chapman are part of a working knowledge of wind turbine syndrome and that use of this term is prevalent.

Mr. Gillespie noted Dr. Baines’ reliance on such diverse sources as the New Yorker and the Toronto Star, on the British Medical Journal, and a summary on Simon Chapman’s website.   Dr. Baines said she was informed by newspaper reports but depends on journal articles.  Dr. Baines denied she is an advocate.

Given the prevalence of symptoms such as sleep disturbances, fatigue, stress, headaches and heart palpitations, Mr. Gillespie asked Dr. Baines if people presenting in hospital with any one of these symptoms would be told:  “why everybody gets these, so go home”.  Dr. Baines said that the important issue isn’t what happens when people go to a doctor, it’s how many people do not go.

Dr. Baines did not agree that a doctor would look into the cause of disturbed sleep.  She said that as a physician she had many patients complaining of disturbed sleep.  There were probably multiple causes and they would be difficult to identify.

ERT Co-chair Robert Wright asked Dr. Baines whether this answer would be the same for each of the other effects listed.  Dr. Baines replied that some effects cry out for investigation and some call for reassurance.

Mr. Gillespie asked Dr. Baines if a doctor would look into the causes of any of the conditions.  Dr. Baines agreed that the issue is causation, that a doctor would look into the possibilities for vertigo, ear pressure or heart palpitations, and that one of the possibilities is noise annoyance.  Dr. Baines agreed that Dr. Levanthall presents a biological mechanism, but she argued that the missing variable is the level of noise required to create those symptoms.

Re-examination of Dr. Baines

Dr. Baines said that she has reviewed the transcript on the internet of three witnesses and they are all clearly unhappy and afflicted.

ERT Panel Questions

Co-chair Heather Gibbs asked Dr. Baines to clarify the distinction between association and causation.  Dr. Baines gave the example of silicone breast implants.  When women became concerned that breast implants were causing autoimmune disease, they attributed to the implants everything that happened, from tooth extractions to divorce.  For them, it was a causal effect.

Mr. Gillespie noted that some effects were associated with breast implants and some were not.  Dr. Baines agreed.

Mr. Wright asked about psychogenic illness.  Could it be demonstrated by epidemiological study?  Dr. Baines said it would require subjecting individuals to sham and real infrasound for varying lengths of time.  If they endured this over a month, it might be possible to say they were not just having psychogenetic symptoms.  The problem, however, is that no experiment which could cause harm to people is ethically acceptable.  Dr. Baines added that there was no reason to be concerned with noiseless infrasound in real life.