Sarah Dingle: Over the next few years, Australia is set to radically increase electricity generation from wind power. Wind is key to achieving our target of 20% renewable energy by 2020.

But developments are under attack from an anti-wind farm movement, which is putting major projects in doubt with claims that low frequency sound from wind turbines is making people sick.

Sarah Laurie: Tinnitus, balance problems, dizziness, headaches, and it can also involve what they call…I guess the residents sort of call 'fuzzy thinking', or not being able to think clearly.

Sarah Dingle: Dr Sarah Laurie heads the Waubra Foundation, a company incorporating a registered charity which is at the forefront of opposition to wind farms.

The health claims, although unproven, have had such an impact that the federal government's official position is there's no evidence either way on whether wind farms harm human health.

And the coalition, if elected, wants a full-scale national scientific investigation, says its energy spokesman Ian Macfarlane.

Ian Macfarlane: We want an independent assessment of exactly what the health impacts or otherwise are of wind farms so that we can resolve this matter once and for all.

Sarah Dingle: The matter has been resolved, according to a number of major reports from around the world. They all say there's no evidence that wind farms make people sick. But politicians are too afraid to stand by that, which is giving oxygen to false and at times bizarre claims, according to Professor of Public Health, Simon Chapman.

Simon Chapman: This is a disease in search of a cause, I think. Sarah Laurie believes that lips can quiver at up to 10 kilometres away from a turbine and that wind turbines can make a stationary car rock at up to 1 kilometre. I mean, these claims are absolutely preposterous, they're fairy stories.

Sarah Dingle: And some believe Dr Laurie could actually be causing symptoms.

Fiona Crichton: I think she's very genuine, but I'm concerned that the way that she's transmitting information, the way she's discussing the possible health risks from her point of view is likely to cause symptoms, I just think it is. Yes, I do.

Sarah Dingle: That's Fiona Crichton, a doctoral candidate from the University of Auckland, and we'll hear more from her later.

Now Dr Sarah Laurie is the subject of an extensive complaint to the National Health and Medical Research Council, alleging she's conducting research involving humans without apparent oversight by a Human Research Ethics Committee.

Do you think this constitutes research involving humans, if you're getting them to keep diaries and check their blood pressure?

Sarah Laurie: Sarah, they're doing it for their own benefit.

Sarah Dingle: Hello, I'm Sarah Dingle, and today on Background Briefing: the war over wind.

This is a conflict framed by anxiety and distrust, where rural Australians are caught in a tussle with science, industry and politics. As they see it, their backyards and their well-being are at stake. Also at stake is the country's clean energy commitment, fundamental to climate change policy.

Australia has some of the best places in the world to harness wind, and Bass Strait is at the top of the list. Tiny King Island, in the middle of Bass Strait, is right in the teeth of the Roaring Forties. This is the new frontline in the war over wind, and it's threatening to tear this small community apart.

Brian Youd: It's just like being back in the past, you've got a beach, you feel like you're the only person on the beach, no one's ever been here.

Sarah Dingle: Brian Youd is a fifth generation King Islander. He drives a gas truck, and for a bit of extra cash he carts the bull kelp that washes up on the shores to a drying station. Now there's a new industry proposed for King Island; what would be the biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere. Brian Youd is worried.

Brian Youd: Renewable energy is a scheme that seems to be the latest fad, talk about carbon credits, everyone's after a 20% reduction, that's the figure they say, 20% reduction by 2020. At what price? Sacrifice 1,200, 1,400 people on King Island?

Sarah Dingle: The proposal is for around 200 turbines, 150 metres high at the tip of the blade, spaced across one-fifth of King Island's landmass. They'll definitely stand out.

Miles Smith is the business development director for Hydro Tasmania, the proponent of the wind farm project, known as TasWind.

Miles Smith: We've always said that we won't proceed with this project without community support.

Sarah Dingle: Hydro Tasmania is Australia's largest renewable energy generator, fully owned by the Tasmanian government. In an unusual move, Hydro says it will ask the community to vote in June on whether the proposal should go to a two-year feasibility stage. If a significant proportion vote no, the company may abandon the project altogether.

Miles Smith: I think our CEO has been quoted as saying 60% yes is sort of a figure that we'd be looking for. What we're trying to do here is set a benchmark for community consultation, and give them as many facts as we can to let them make their own mind up.

Sarah Dingle: Without a feasibility study, Hydro Tasmania's not in a position to answer all the questions about the TasWind proposal, like rental payments for hosting towers on properties, the shape of any community fund, or where exactly the turbines would go. Their inability to give answers has bred considerable suspicion.

Brian Youd's and his brother Michael are at the lawn bowls night in Currie, the main town on King Island.

Michael Youd: What concerns me is we've got a beautiful place here and it'll change it and you won't be able to reverse it back. A small percentage of people can get affected from health issues with them, you've got livestock, and once wind towers are up it restricts developments in the future.

Brian Youd: I think there's a fair bit of skulduggery going on, I think that this is bigger than what's been proposed.

Donald Graham: We felt that we needed to get our heads together because quite a significant proportion of the population clearly did not want this, and they thought that they were being manoeuvred subtly by TasWind.

Sarah Dingle: That's Donald Graham, one of the most prominent opponents of the wind farm project. He's vice chair of the No TasWind Farm Group. Donald Graham says there's no need to vote on whether to go to a two-year feasibility stage. Instead, islanders should vote point blank on whether they want the TasWind development or not.

Donald Graham: During that two years we'll end up with situation where nobody will want to buy land here, nobody will be able to sell land here.

Sarah Dingle: Because TasWind is conducting an $18 million feasibility study into a wind farm?

Donald Graham: Yes, yes, because who would buy a farm next to somebody that's going to host these turbines?

Sarah Dingle: One person who is keen to be a host is Rod McGarvie.

Rod McGarvie: I think they're quite elegant and I guess I like seeing the result of human endeavour.

Sarah Dingle: Rod McGarvie and his wife Val are retired dairy farmers. There are already five smaller wind turbines on King Island built as part of a hybrid power station. The McGarvies live less than three kilometres away, and often see them on their daily walk.

Val McGarvie: I can just go outside here and see them, I do like the look of them. I think I can imagine a whole 200 of them together as a farm, and to me it's going to be a wind farm; as we run cattle on a farm, we're going to run wind towers.

Sarah Dingle: The wind farm proposal has polarised the King Island community. For the Youd brothers, it's really hit home; their father Peter thinks it may be a good idea, but he acknowledges it's split his family and community.

Peter Youd: I've never seen the island, in my 46 years I've lived here, being divided like it is at the moment. I know of one occasion where a friendship of 55 years was busted. It has divided the family, I'd rather just leave it at that.

Brian Youd: Yes, my father's taken the view these are going to save King Island, and that's fair enough, that's his choice. I don't know of any of his grandkids or his own kids that want these things. He's not going to be the one around, and there's hidden things there we don't know about, where there are health issues, I don't know.

Sarah Dingle: Brian Youd's not the only one unclear on whether wind farms have any health impact. The federal government also says the jury's out.

In 2011, a Senate inquiry into the social and economic impacts of rural wind farms heard evidence from individual residents who said they were suffering symptoms caused by nearby wind turbines. The inquiry also heard from medical experts. It found that some people living close to wind farms do experience adverse health effects, but these are not necessarily caused by turbine noise, they might also be caused by 'stress', or 'perceptions of harm'. The Senate Committee said there was 'insufficient rigorous research' to know the answer, and thorough studies needed to be carried out.

Now the National Health and Medical Research Council is looking into it.

Warwick Anderson: I can assure you that a very thorough dredging of the literature is being done.

Sarah Dingle: In 2010, the NHMRC issued a rapid review of the evidence, saying 'there are no direct pathological effects from wind farms'. This is now under review, says the head of the NHMRC, Professor Warwick Anderson.

Warwick Anderson: We are just completing a careful systematic review of all the literature, both the peer reviewed and looking at the grey literature

Sarah Dingle: And what is grey literature?

Warwick Anderson: Grey literature is non peer reviewed literature. It varies a lot, from semi formal but not peer reviewed articles to opinion pieces. And although that is of course very low-level evidence in terms of a systematic evidence-based review, we felt it important on this particular issue because it's a new issue to make sure we hadn't missed anything of value in all that.

Sarah Dingle: This is another political and policy issue rooted in an argument about science.

The Waubra Foundation claims health problems associated with wind farms are caused by low frequency sound waves from the turbines. This includes infrasound. Infrasound is sound below 20 Hertz, which according to audiologists is too low to be heard by the human ear. Sarah Laurie disputes this and says some particularly sensitive individuals can hear infrasound. She blames low frequency noise and infrasound for so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome.

Sarah Laurie: We know that in the population roughly 10% of people will be quite severely motion sick. And those people seem to be the ones that develop the symptoms earlier.

Sarah Dingle: Dr Laurie says there are a number of serious medical conditions which directly correspond with the operation of wind turbines. These include heart attacks, irreversible memory dysfunction, severe depression with suicidal thoughts, and chronic severe sleep deprivation.

Sarah Laurie: There are a number of wind developments, particularly with the larger turbines, where people are reporting having these very vivid and quite violent dreams. Never happened before, doesn't happen when the turbines aren't turning, and it seems to correlate with particular wind directions. So when they're downwind, particularly.

Sarah Dingle: At a recent public meeting, Sarah Laurie even drew a connection between wind turbines and autistic behaviour.

Sarah Laurie: People with autism are known to be particularly noise sensitive. There's certainly children with autism and families with more than one child with autism who have a really difficult time when the turbines start operating.

Simon Chapman: I've worked in schools of medicine now for the better part of 30 years and I don't think I've ever come across anything which has remotely the same number of problems associated with it.

Sarah Dingle: Professor of Public Health Simon Chapman is best known for his decades of work on tobacco control, culminating in Australia's plain packaging laws. Now he's looking into Wind Turbine Syndrome, and he says the evidence is clear.

Simon Chapman: There have been actually 17 reports that I've found—reviews I should say, not reports—which have looked at all the evidence to date when they were published, and none of those 17 reviews have said that wind turbines, and specifically infrasound, are harmful to health.

Sarah Dingle: But Sarah Laurie says there's another literature review which contradicts those findings. It was done by two doctors from Ontario, Canada.

Sarah Laurie: Those two public health physicians—so they're doctors—looked at the literature and they looked to see whether or not there was actually an impact or not from the wind developments. And they found that every single peer-reviewed published study showed indeed that there was an impact of human distress from the effect of the turbines.

Sarah Dingle: So, the UK Health Protection Agency report on the health effects of infrasound, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection report, the Chief Medical Officer of Health in Ontario report, as well as the UK Health Protection Agency Environmental Health and Noise in the UK, all these reports and literature reviews say that there is no link. Do you dispute every single one of those findings?

Sarah Laurie: I dispute the finding that there is no link.

Sarah Dingle: You can read both literature reviews mentioned by Simon Chapman and Sarah Laurie at the Background Briefing website.

Sarah Laurie and the Waubra Foundation also cite the work of acousticians, engineers who specialise in the study of sound.

Sarah Laurie: There has been some work that's been done by Dr Bob Thorne, and he's collected data from wind developments in Victoria. He used standardised questionnaires that are used in other areas of research, particularly the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which is a measure of sleep disturbance. We know that sleep deprivation is going to result in long-term serious health problems. That's peer reviewed, published science. And what we actually need to do is investigate inside the homes of the places where these people are reporting problems.

Sarah Dingle: A leading audiologist says the link between wind turbine noise and adverse health impacts is tenuous. Professor Richard Dowell is the chair of audiology and speech science at the University of Melbourne.

Richard Dowell: There doesn't appear to be very good evidence that it's harmful to human health.

Sarah Dingle: Professor Dowell says scientists try not to make black and white statements, and it's theoretically possible that extremely intense low frequency sound could affect balance.

Richard Dowell: At very high levels, it's certainly possible that low frequencies could be detected in the fluids of the inner ear, and because the inner ear not only has the hearing mechanism, it also has part of our balance mechanism, and so I think it could make you perhaps dizzy or feeling a little strange or something like that. Now, I have never seen any clear evidence of that occurring either.

But the thing that is of interest to me is that if you measure the levels of infrasound in most cities from traffic and other sources, they're actually much higher levels than you get from a wind turbine, say, at any reasonable distance. So I think one of the studies was looking at 300 metres and then further out at maybe 1 kilometre from the wind turbine, but it was very hard sometimes to find out the contribution of the wind turbine to the low frequency noise and separate that from the contribution of just normal wind noise.

Sarah Dingle: Professor Dowell has spent the last year using a research grant to review the evidence for Wind Turbine Syndrome.

Richard Dowell: That literature review I suppose, looking at a lot of different studies from around the world, concluded there was no evidence of a link between the sounds generated by the turbines and any health symptoms. On the other hand there is evidence that you get much higher rates of reporting of such symptoms where there is a high level of annoyance or people are upset about the wind turbines being placed where they are.

Sarah Dingle: And wind turbines certainly do annoy some people. But Professor Simon Chapman says being annoyed is not the same as being sick.

Simon Chapman: Annoyance can manifest in health problems, you can experience all the symptoms that go along with being annoyed and agitated, but that is mainly due to one's belief about wind turbines, rather than to some property of the sound actually affecting you.

Sarah Laurie: If we're talking about sleep deprivation, and if there is a connection between specific acoustic frequencies and the sleep disturbance, as has been suggested and is certainly suggested by some of the preliminary results from data at Waterloo, then I think…

Sarah Dingle: Data by whom?

Sarah Laurie: Data by Professor Con Doolan. So that's one, and that was according to the resident who took part in that study.

Sarah Dingle: The single resident?

Sarah Laurie: The single resident, that's correct. Well, there's not a lot of data that's been collected, so we go on what we've got, Sarah. That's why we need a whole lot more of it.

Sarah Dingle: The Gillard government hasn't committed to doing that extra research. The federal opposition says if it wins power, the coalition will commission an independent panel of scientific and medical experts to investigate whether wind farms do harm health.

Energy spokesman Ian Macfarlane says the research has to focus solely on Australian wind farms.

Ian Macfarlane: Well, I think we need to satisfy the concerns of the community, and the concerns of the community are not satisfied by international studies. What we need to do is do a report here in Australia, in situ, in the communities that claim to be affected and then come to a scientific and medically based position after that.

Sarah Dingle: Do you think it's possible wind farms have an adverse impact on human health?

Ian Macfarlane: Well, quite frankly I don't know.

Sarah Dingle: The Waubra Foundation's CEO Sarah Laurie has been calling for a full-scale scientific investigation for years.

When you talk about the research that you want to do, how many of the wind farms in Australia would you like to target? How many people, how many areas are we talking about?

Sarah Laurie: Well, I think the wind developments where there have been problems reported. And that's most of them. I guess when I say 'most of them'…

Sarah Dingle: You don't think for control reasons you should go to perhaps a randomly selected number of developments, or developments where there have been no problems reported?

Sarah Laurie: I think absolutely you need that comparison, yes. But if you're talking about investigating the problems, you need to go to where the problems are.

Sarah Dingle: If federal and state governments agree to fund the research you're calling for around the country, and it clears wind farms of any adverse impact on human health, would you accept that?

Sarah Laurie: Sarah, the adverse impacts have been shown by a number of studies, both overseas and in Australia.

Sarah Dingle: With 51 wind farms in Australia, Professor Simon Chapman says the location of complaints is telling.

Simon Chapman: What I found in the study is that 72% of the complaints come from just six farms out of the 51 round Australia, and nearly 80% of those complaints have started after 2009.

Sarah Dingle: So what happened in 2009?

Simon Chapman: Well, 2009 was when some of the anti-wind turbine groups, who'd previously been mostly basing their opposition around aesthetics, and saying, 'Look, we simply don't like the look of these things. We don't believe that they belong in our bucolic, beautiful, untouched countryside. Let's get rid of them,' started saying, 'Well, let's start talking about health problems.'

Sarah Dingle: Sarah Laurie says she doesn't approach communities with concerns about wind farms, communities approach her and she'll talk to anyone seeking information.

A few weeks ago, Dr Laurie went to King Island to speak at a meeting of the No TasWind Farm Group.

Donald Graham: We've got Dr Sarah Laurie here, and I think she's got an interesting story to tell. [applause]

Sarah Dingle: Sarah Laurie had a clear message for the King Island community.

Sarah Laurie: There are two patterns of symptoms that are characteristic for exposure to the very low frequency sound energy. People don't describe this at other times. One of them is this waking up in a panicked state at night, and the other one is a very unusual and bizarre perception of body vibration. Sometimes it can be as subtle as just your upper lip.

Chris Porter: Her presentation was very reasonable. Everything that she talked about was substantiated with evidence.

Sarah Dingle: Chris Porter is a beef farmer and a member of the No TasWind Farm Group. He says it's obvious what the community's decision should be.

Chris Porter: If there is the remotest possibility that the health of King Islanders are going to be affected, that property values are going to be affected, that the community is going to be totally disrupted, I would think that you don't do it.

Sarah Laurie: The other study I think is of concern is one study of chronic exposure in rats for I think it was three hours a day of infrasound for 60 days. Certainly there was focal organ damage being reported. And there's some clinical histories that are suggestive that that is certainly happening in some people.

Andrea Bowden: Every time you would think this was a fact, it wasn't actually presented as a fact. But to the layperson who didn't know how to distinguish or maybe weren't watching as closely, they would've thought, oh yeah, this is a fact, and she's a doctor, and blah blah blah. Whereas I was like *cough*, yeah.

Sarah Dingle: Andrea Bowden is a business owner and youth worker who's spent 13 years living on King Island. She's also part of the TasWind Consultative Committee, the TWCC. This is made up of islanders for and against the proposal, set up to gather information for the rest of the community. Because of the divisions around the wind proposal, committee members can only speak in a personal capacity.

Andrea Bowden: I'm exhausted. I think we all are. I get stopped at the post office, the bank, the newsagency, and then before I get back to the car.

Sarah Dingle: What do people say to you when they stop you?

Andrea Bowden: Oh, well, 'I was for it until my kid told me that they were on the Great Ocean Road and they 18 kilometres from the nearest wind tower and they could hear them', blah blah blah. And I'm like, 'Really? They could hear them over the road? And the people?' 'Well, it was early.' 'Did they turn their car off?' And they're like, 'Oh well I believe my kid would've told me right.'

Sarah Dingle: Andrea Bowden doesn't think wind farms have an adverse impact on human health, and she's very sceptical of the evidence presented by Sarah Laurie.

Andrea Bowden: All the research that I've done shows no. I've read a lot of articles. If I found even one credible new source that says 'here it is, they're terrible, they give us cancer, they give us all athlete's foot' I would be up in arms. But I haven't found that. I don't think that we can anticipate the effects of anxiety on people who've never had anxious problems before, but what do you do? You're trying to fight an unknown foe in the fog. Is there really a foe, is it in your mind? You never know.

Sarah Dingle: Andrea Bowden says that's exactly the confusion Sarah Laurie creates.

Andrea Bowden: She comes out with her big smoke machine, in my opinion, and blows a big smoke and then tells you there's a thumping big nasty guy in there and she doesn't tell you whether he's a samurai or a kitchen chef, and whether or not he's going to cut you to shreds or beat you down or just make you some noodles.

Sarah Dingle: The King Island community is declining in population. There are now only about 1,500 residents, and in a small community divisions are amplified.

Here's the island's mayor, Greg Barratt.

Greg Barratt: I've been threatened with legal action if the council down the track approves the wind farm. It's been suggested individual councillors could be sued if there are health issues emanating from this wind farm.

Sarah Dingle: Who's making those threats?

Greg Barratt: I suppose the people who are anti the development.

Sarah Dingle: A week before Dr Sarah Laurie's visit, retiree David Kerr, who was also on the TWCC, paid for an insert in the local paper questioning the reliability of claims by Dr Laurie and the Waubra Foundation. In response, the No TasWind Farm Group threatened legal action, which has shaken David Kerr.

David Kerr: They just say they're looking at the position and it's in the hands of their solicitors.

Sarah Dingle: Does that add a bit of extra stress to your job as you go about being a member of the TWCC?

David Kerr: Oh well, I'm human like everybody, yes. There has been the odd…[cries].

Sarah Dingle: Wind farm opponent Donald Graham says the article placed by the Kerrs was unnecessarily provocative in a small community.

Donald Graham: They should've thought before they did what they did. It's quoting rubbish, turning fact to fiction about all sorts of things.

Sarah Dingle: The No TasWind Farm Group has engaged a prominent Sydney-based public relations expert Ben Haslem to argue their case. Mr Haslem has experience in arguing the case for some controversial organisations, like James Hardie, the Church of Scientology, and the Exclusive Brethren.

There was also a threat to Dr Laurie, made ahead of her visit to King Island, according to Donald Graham.

Donald Graham: I didn't take it seriously, she didn't take it seriously, but I went to the police, explained the situation and I left it in their hands.

Sarah Dingle: The police officer in charge on King Island, Steve Shaw, told Background Briefing he received an email apparently from an anti wind farm campaigner in Spain, who said Dr Laurie could be harassed or worse during her time on the island. To follow up the complaint, the police visited the Kerrs.

David Kerr: We did receive a visit from the local police and they asked us if we were a threat to her safety whilst on King Island or whether we knew of any other island residents that could be a threat to her safety.

Sarah Dingle: David Kerr said they said they weren't, and they didn't know of anyone else who would be a threat to her safety either.

Sarah Laurie: Look, I've had a number of threats and quite a lot of hate mail, email. I am increasingly concerned about the level of vitriol and vilification in public discourse about this issue.

Sarah Dingle: Sarah Laurie also says her phone is being tapped.

Sarah Laurie: I've had it confirmed by police on a number of occasions when I've complained.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing has statements from the South Australian police and the AFP, saying they don't have any record of Dr Laurie's complaint, and the South Australian police say they have no evidence of her phone being tapped.

Sarah Laurie is the subject of a lengthy complaint made to the National Health and Medical Research Council. Background Briefing has seen a copy of that complaint. It says she appears to be conducting research involving human subjects, which Dr Laurie denies.

In 2011 Victorian residents Andrew and Maggie Reid provided public submissions to a senate inquiry. Andrew Reid said he had been monitoring his blood pressure twice daily under the supervision of Dr Laurie. Maggie Reid said that as a subject of Dr Laurie's research, her blood pressure was in the high to extremely high area, and she had begun taking blood pressure medication Micardis. Dr Laurie says the Reids shared a small part of their personal health journals with her at one point in time.

The National Health and Medical Research Council has a National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. It defines human research as: 'The involvement of human beings through: taking part in surveys; undergoing psychological, physiological or medical testing or treatment; being observed by researchers; researchers having access to their personal documents.'

Sarah Laurie says she does tell residents who believe they have been affected by wind turbines to keep health diaries.

Sarah Laurie: I have suggested to them that that is one of the things that they can do. In the past sometimes they've chosen to share that with me, but mostly it's been done…well, it has been done for their benefit and it's also been done for the benefit of their treating doctors.

Sarah Dingle: Do you also ask them to check their blood pressure?

Sarah Laurie: I have suggested that that is one thing that they would certainly be advised to do if they've had problems with blood pressure in the past, in consultation with their own GPs. And that's a matter for them, between them and their treating doctor.

Sarah Dingle: And what about surveys? Do you get them to fill out surveys or questionnaires?

Sarah Laurie: No.

Sarah Dingle: So, do you think this constitutes research involving humans, if you're getting them to keep diaries and check their blood pressure?

Sarah Laurie: Sarah, they're doing it for their own benefit.

Sarah Dingle: At your suggestion and they're sharing the results with you.

Sarah Laurie: For their self-care and for sharing with their own doctors.

Sarah Dingle: Research involving humans is getting people to undertake psychological, physiological, or medical testing, and certainly if you're part of a research institute it's advisable to get ethics approval before doing that. Do you have ethics approval for the fieldwork you're doing?

Sarah Laurie: Sarah, it was made very clear to you that this, as you know, is the subject of a complaint that has been lodged with the National Health and Medical Research Council. It is inappropriate of me to comment on this matter.

Warwick Anderson: We will wait until we have her response, then we'll make a decision about how to proceed or if to proceed once we have that information.

Sarah Dingle: The head of the NHMRC Professor Warwick Anderson says outside of universities there's no legal requirement to have an ethics committee oversee research involving humans.

The complaint about Dr Laurie alleges that she is having direct clinical contact with individuals. (NHMRC statement on complaint about Sarah Laurie) Dr Laurie's medical registration lapsed in 2006.

Sarah Laurie: My current status as a registered or unregistered medical practitioner has absolutely nothing to do with this. I've made my registration status very clear. I'm a concerned citizen with medical training investigating a serious public health problem as the CEO of an advocacy organisation that has been consistently calling for research. We are asking why the research is not being done.

Sarah Dingle: The Waubra Foundation has commissioned some research. One of the subjects is David Mortimer, a resident of the Lake Bonney district in South Australia. In 2004, he agreed to host two wind turbines on his farm, less than a kilometre from his house, for which he was paid by the wind farm developer. At first it wasn't just the noise from the wind turbines that bothered him.

David Mortimer: The noises that we got from the turbines when we were living on the farm, combined with the noises from centre pivot irrigation units that had been recently installed, we considered a little bit too much for us.

Sarah Dingle: David Mortimer and his wife moved to another house in late 2006, where they are now two and a half kilometres from four turbines.

David Mortimer: And it was from that time that I particularly started virtually immediately getting physiological problems that I hadn't had before. The first thing I got was tinnitus, that's the loud screaming you get in your ears. An apparent heart arrhythmia…I call it 'apparent' because it turns out that it wasn't. After I consulted our doctor and we had an ECG and stethoscope check and all those things, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my heart, my heart was beating along perfectly normally.

But, to carry on with the problems, I then got fits of depression or acute weariness. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and not wake up. I get nocturnal panic attacks, where I wake up in the middle of the night trying to get away from things that I have no idea what's chasing me.

Sarah Dingle: David Mortimer is one of a number of people who donate money to the Waubra Foundation. Last December, the Waubra Foundation paid for an acoustician to conduct three weeks of testing at the Mortimers' current residence, which is two and a half kilometres from the nearest turbine. David Mortimer says he kept a diary of his symptoms day to day and checked his blood pressure.

David Mortimer: I had to fill out forms for the period that the equipment was actually installed here, noting time of day and wind conditions, weather conditions, pulse rate, physical symptoms, whatever.

Sarah Dingle: And with the information that you check from all that monitoring, do you send that off with the acoustic as well?

David Mortimer: Yes, they were sent off and married up to that three-week period.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing spoke to the acoustician, Les Huson, who said he was conducting tests at six homes in Victoria and South Australia for the Waubra Foundation. Mr Huson also said he was asking residents to fill out questionnaires, which included a section for health complaints, and asked respondents to describe the severity of symptoms. Mr Huson denied that he had any blood pressure data.

Sarah Laurie says the Waubra Foundation is employing two acousticians, Les Huson and Steven Cooper, who conduct tests intermittently when the Foundation has the funds to pay them.

And at which wind farm developments?

Sarah Dingle: I'm not going to be disclosing that to you, because they do the monitoring at various times. The residents notice that the turbines are not as noisy when the monitoring is going on if it becomes public knowledge in the community that the monitoring is being conducted. And obviously…

Sarah Dingle: You think wind farm operators are actually reducing the amount of power they generate because your acousticians are going to visit?

Sarah Laurie: Yes, we do.

Sarah Dingle: And what evidence do you have of that beyond residents' anecdotal..?

Sarah Laurie: Oh, we've got some film footage that suggests that that's what is going on.

Sarah Dingle: And how does the film footage suggest that is the case?

Sarah Laurie: Well, you can see that the turbines are turning at different speeds. The wind is blowing at the same strength and you have turbines in the same area that are turning at different speeds, markedly different speeds.

Sarah Dingle: A senior engineer at Hydro Tasmania says individual wind turbines catch different wind speeds, even in a local area, and each turbine automatically adjusts to the wind, which is why they can turn at different rates.

The expectations of people who live near wind turbines may be a significant factor in the reporting of symptoms.

Fiona Crichton: I don't know Dr Laurie, but my reading of her work concerns me.

Sarah Dingle: Fiona Crichton is a PhD candidate in psychological medicine at the University of Auckland. In a paper published by the American Psychological Association, she and her co-authors decided to test whether expectations affected the number and severity of symptoms reported from infrasound, which is the low-level sound emitted by a number of sources including wind turbines.

Fiona Crichton: It lends itself quite nicely to what we call a sham paradigm. Because infrasound is below the threshold of human hearing and you actually can't detect it, you can tell people they're being exposed to infrasound and they're not.

Sarah Dingle: In fact, Fiona Crichton carried out a double blind study. She showed one group of 27 people a video of scientists explaining infrasound, saying there was no reason to assume it would affect health. This was the low expectancy group. She showed a second group video of media reports warning them of the health impacts of wind farms. This was the high expectancy group. Then she subjected both groups to ten minutes of real infrasound, and ten minutes of sham infrasound.

Fiona Crichton: In the high expectancy group they experienced an elevation of symptoms both during sham and during infrasound. The low expectancy group didn't experience any symptomatic change at all. There was no physiological impact of the infrasound, but it was all about expectancy.

There's a sort of assumption, I think, that reporting of symptoms means that people are being exposed to some sort of organic hazard. Which could be the case, but you have to be very careful that it's not being caused just by the whole idea of being sick. It's very tricky, and I think it comes down to responsible reporting, and responsible transmission of information.

Sarah Dingle: What do you think of Dr Sarah Laurie's work, do you think it's likely that she makes already anxious people sick?

Fiona Crichton: I think she's well meaning, but I think that she isn't aware of the fact that she's creating a health scare that could in itself create symptoms.

Sarah Dingle: By spreading concerns about wind farms, do you think you're in a sense contaminating the evidence before the research that you're calling for? You're telling people already that it's going to make them sick?

Sarah Laurie: No, I'm not, Sarah. With the greatest of respect, I'm not telling them that it's going to make them sick, and in fact I'm very careful when I go to these meetings to say to people that not everybody experiences symptoms. Some people are fine.

Sarah Dingle: There can be what's known as a 'psychological overlay' to symptoms. Audiologist, Professor Richard Dowell says conditions like tinnitus and balance problems are common in older people, and psychological factors can considerably worsen the effects for some people.

Richard Dowell: They then focus on that symptom very powerfully to the effect that they really can't even live their lives. In some ways I see a few similarities in some of the reports about these symptoms related to being close to wind farms.

Sarah Dingle: That people feel anxious and ill is not disputed. But there's been no evidence to date that wind turbines directly cause illness. The fear of health effects may be harming those individuals. And the same fears could hamper national efforts to reduce carbon emissions and achieve the renewable energy target of 20% by 2020.

Shadow energy spokesman, Ian Macfarlane says those efforts rely on wind power.

Ian Macfarlane: Of all the other technologies very few have the capability to install around 1,000MW per annum which is what's going to be required if we are to reach the 20% target. In fact the biggest challenge facing us getting to that target is to see enough wind farms built.

Sarah Dingle: Later this year the National Health and Medical Research Council will conclude its review of evidence on wind farms and whether they are harmful to human health.

And next month, King Islanders will vote on whether to proceed to the next stage of the wind farm, which on its own could generate more than a quarter of the national renewable energy target.

For more information, go to the Background Briefing website.

The co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Anna Whitfeld and Jess Hill, technical production by Mark Don, and Chris Bullock is executive producer. I'm Sarah Dingle.