Doctors concerned about noise pollution caused by wind turbines

General practitioners are concerned about the health effects the constant noise from land-bound wind turbines has on the people who live near them. It is known that constant noise increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, and yet the government seems to only look at positive studies about wind turbines and health, doctors told AD.

GP Cornelis Pet in Meeden, Groningen, told the newspaper about patients who built a sound-proof room in their house as a last-ditch effort to sometimes escape the noise from the N33 wind farm, less than a kilometer away from the village. “I know of several people that regularly sleep elsewhere,” Pet said. “I estimate that over a third of the population in Meede experience inconvenience.”

“The insomnia leads to stress, anger, fatigue, and increased levels of irritation and alertness,” Pet said about his patients. “Parents complain about unruly children and learning delays. I see arguments, depression, and suicidal tendencies. But despite all the cries for help to politicians, nothing is improving. As a doctor, I feel powerless.” As a human being, he is “furious.”

GP Sylvia van Manen from Den Bosch also noticed more complaints in her practice since four tall windmills appeared in the Engelen district in 2020. “Dizziness, migraine, and feelings of restlessness and fear.” Some patients have changed how they use their homes as a form of self-medication, she said. “Since the arrival of the wind turbines, a patient no longer sits in the living room with her children, but in the kitchen, to avoid the noise and cast shadow.”

A recent report by the Netherlands Institute for Healthcare Research (Nivel) said that between 2012 and 2021, GPs did not diagnose acute or chronic health problems more often in people living near wind turbines than in people who live further away. Multiple GPs told AD that is hogwash.

Nivel looked at a connection between postal code areas and the codes with which GPs register their patients' diagnoses. “Methodologically, there is a lot to comment on. You really cannot draw this conclusion,” Dick Bijl, a former GP and epidemiologist and scientific advisor for the doctors’ collective Wind Wiki, told AD.

GP Anneke Bodde from Denekamp is also critical of the method. The ICPC codes used in the Nivel study are unsuitable for scientific conclusions, she told AD. “I can write down complaints like anxiety or sleep problems under many different codes. At the same time, the system is not detailed enough to indicate whether the diagnosis is related to the nuisance caused by wind turbines.” Several other GPs said the same thing, according to the newspaper.

“I am very concerned about how the government is working,” Bodde said. “The only goal seems to be the installation of wind farms. While it has been proven that constant noise increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet only the favorable studies are selected.”