The Australian Medical Association has dismissed any link between poor health and wind farms, stating that the spreading of “health scares and misinformation” could be heightening community anxiety, potentially causing illness.



Australia’s peak body for doctors said domestic and international evidence “does not support” the theory that infrasound or low frequency sound generated by wind farms causes adverse health effects in people living near them.

“Individuals residing in the vicinity of wind farms who do experience adverse health or wellbeing, may do so as a consequence of their heightened anxiety or negative perceptions regarding wind farm developments in their area,” said the AMA’s position statement.

“The reporting of ‘health scares’ and misinformation regarding wind farm developments may contribute to heightened anxiety and community division, and over-rigorous regulation of these developments by state governments.”

The AMA advised that the regulation of wind farms should be “guided entirely” by the evidence of their impacts.

The federal government is looking to press ahead with an “independent review” of wind farms. The Victorian government, which has banned the establishment of wind farms within 2km of any dwelling, has offered $100,000 towards the study.

Maurice Newman, who is Tony Abbott’s leading business adviser, has been a high-profile critic of wind farms, calling them a “danger to human health” and threatening to sue a farmer for erecting wind turbines upon a property adjacent to Newman’s.

Despite the objections of Newman, and anti-wind groups such as the Waubra Foundation, numerous studies into wind farms have found they there is no clear link to ill effects in humans.

Dozens of symptoms have been attributed to wind farms by complainants, including accelerated ageing, back pain, bowel cancer and diarrhoea. Wind farms have also been blamed for killing emus and for missing eyeballs in newborn calves.

In February, a review of evidence by the National Health and Medical Research Council found there was no reliable evidence of health problems caused by wind farms.

Professor Geoffrey Dobb, vice president of the AMA, said: “The infrasound and low frequency sound generated by modern wind farms in Australia is well below the level where known health effects occur.

“And there is no accepted physiological mechanism where sub-audible infrasound could cause health effects.

“The reporting of supposed ‘health scares’ or the spreading of misinformation about wind farm developments may contribute to heightened anxiety.

“Community consultation and engagement at the start of the process is important to minimise misinformation, anxiety, and community division.”