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Wind turbines appear to cause Vibro-Acoustic Disease(VAD), say Portuguese scientists*31 May, 2007 In a press release 5-31-07 from the Vibro-Acoustic Disease (VAD) research group in Portugal, people living in the shadow of industrial wind turbines have moved a step closer to understanding the nature of the Wind Turbine Syndrome many of them experience and complain about. Professor Mariana Alves-Pereira (an acoustical engineer) and Dr. Nuno Castelo Branco (a surgical pathologist) recently took numerous fine-grained noise/vibration measurements within a Portuguese home surrounded by four (4) industrial wind turbines. The closest turbine being nearly 1000 feet (300 meters), almost a fifth of a mile, from the affected home. (The turbines have been operating since November 2006.) Alves-Pereira and Branco then matched these in-the-home (actually, in the bedroom of a 9-year-old child with obvious Wind Turbine Syndrome symptoms) Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise (ILFN) readings to ILFN readings taken within a home near Lisbon, Portugal, where a family of four is definitively suffering from Vibro-Acoustic Disease caused by a nearby deep-water grain elevator (where freighters off-load their grain). (The readings in this second home were taken in the bedroom of a 10-year-old child with demonstrated VAD, again from the deep-water grain elevator about a mile away across the Tagus River.) Incidentally, VAD is conclusively demonstrated by echocardiograms (checking for thickened pericardium and valves not related to any inflammatory process), bronchoscopy (looking for a characteristic “pink lesion”), pulmonary function tests (especially the PCO2 test, which is abnormal in all VAD patients), brain MRI’s and brain wave studies (brainstem auditory evoked potentials and the P300), and, when possible, postmortem tissue pathology and animal experimentation. VAD, in other words, produces a distinctive pathological fingerprint (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Branco_&_Alves-Pereira,_Vibroacoustic_Disease.pdf <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Branco_&_Alves-Pereira,_Vibroacoustic_Disease.pdf> ). Their results stunned them: the ILFN readings in the bedroom of the 9-year-old with obvious Wind Turbine Syndrome symptoms are actually higher than ILFN readings in the bedroom of the 10-year-old with demonstrated VAD caused by the nearby grain elevator. Alves-Pereira and Branco published a case study of the 10-year-old and his family in the Proceedings of Internoise 2004 (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_grain_elevator_VAD.pdf). Their conclusion? These results irrefutably demonstrate that wind turbines in the proximity of residential areas produce acoustical environments that can lead to the development of VAD in nearby home-dwellers. I have attached a copy of the press release. You are welcome to circulate this at will, and to post it on websites. Nina & I urge you to bring this to the attention of news media and government officials. The VAD research team can be contacted at vibroacoustic.disease@gmail.com The credentials of Alves-Pereira and Branco? Professor Mariana Alves-Pereira, School of Health Sciences (ERISA), Lusofona University,Portugal and Department of Environmental Sciences & Engineering, New University of Lisbon, Portugal Nuno Castelo Branco, MD, Surgical Pathologist, President, Scientific Board, Center for Human Performance (CPH) The Center for Human Performance is a civilian, non-profit organization dedicated to research in vibro-acoustic disease. CPH was founded in 1992 and has been the organization which coordinates all the different teams that work on vibro-acoustic disease research, and that include (in Portugal) the cardiology and pulmonary departments of the Cascais Hospital, the neurophysiology department of the National Institute of Cancer, the department of human genetics of the National Institute of Public Health, the department of speech pathology of the School of Health Sciences of the Polytechnical Institute of Setúbal, among several others over the past 25 years. All of this information is currently posted on Nina Pierpont’s website: www.ninapierpont.com <http://www.ninapierpont.com> > Wind energy > Articles by other authors. Scroll down to close to the bottom. On the website, Nina has given a short introduction and comment to VAD and Wind Turbine Syndrome, which I have copied and pasted immediately below this note. Calvin Luther Martin, PhD www.calvinluthermartin.com <http://www.calvinluthermartin.com> Vibro-Acoustic Disease (VAD) by Nina Pierpont, MD PhD, 6-9-07 Over the past several decades, a group of scientists in Portugal has been studying the effects of jet engine Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise (ILFN) on air force pilots, jet engine technicians, commercial airline pilots, flight attendants, as well as investigating industrial ILFN impacts on industrial workers. (The researchers include physicians and environmental engineers who specialize in noise/vibration.) More recently, these scientists have turned their attention to the less intense, yet more chronic, ILFN from man-made environmental sources. The VAD group has demonstrated, in a series of peer-reviewed clinical articles, that chronic exposure to ILFN produces serious damage to the heart, lungs, and brain, caused by thickening and other changes in specific tissues in these organs. This, of course, compromises organ function. Researchers are able to demonstrate this by echocardiograms, pulmonary function tests, brain MRI's, brain wave studies, postmortem tissue pathology, and animal experimentation. Responding to growing numbers of requests from people living in the shadow of industrial wind turbines, the VAD group is now studying ILFN produced by wind turbines. The following is a press release issued by the VAD group, dated 5-31-07. The full text, along with citations and author credentials, can be found by clicking here <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/VAD_press_release_5-31-07.pdf> . Excessive exposure to infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN, defined as all acoustical phenomena occurring at or below the frequency bands of 500 Hz) can cause vibro-acoustic disease (VAD). Research into VAD has been ongoing since 1980, conducted by a multidisciplinary team of scientists led by pathologist Nuno Castelo Branco, MD. In March 2007, for the first time, the Portuguese National Center for Occupational Diseases gave 100% professional disability to a 40-year-old flight attendant who had been diagnosed with VAD since 2001. Two other VAD patients also have been given a similar disability status. Initially, only ILFN-rich occupational environments were investigated. However, over the past several years, many individuals and their families have approached our team because of the ILFN contaminant in their homes. The sources of residential ILFN vary from industrial complexes, to large volume highways, to public transportation systems, etc. In a case study published in Proceedings of Internoise 2004 (an annual scientific meeting dedicated to all aspects of acoustics), one of the first documented cases of environmental VAD was reported in a family of four, exposed to the ILFN produced by a nearby port grain terminal. Over the past three years, several families have contacted this team complaining of noise caused by the proximity of industrial wind turbines (windmills). However, only within this past month (April 2007) has this team obtained detailed acoustical measurements within a home surrounded by four recently installed industrial windmills. This acoustical data was essential in order to compare in-home, windmill-produced acoustical environments with the residential, ILFN-rich environments that are known to be conducive to VAD. The levels of ILFN inside the windmill-surrounded home are larger than those obtained in the home contaminated by the port grain terminal. The scientific report on this will be formally presented at Internoise 2007, to be held on 28-31 August in Istanbul, Turkey. These results irrefutably demonstrate that wind turbines in the proximity of residential areas produce acoustical environments that can lead to the development of VAD in nearby home-dwellers. In order to protect Public Health, ILFN-producing devices must not be placed in locations that will contaminate residential areas with this agent of disease. My hunch is that some of the symptoms I describe with Wind Turbine Syndrome will turn out to be a result of VAD triggered by wind turbines. Put differently, I suspect the VAD research group is coming up with a pathological explanation for some of the manifestations of Wind Turbine Syndrome. The wind turbine/VAD connection has yet to be demonstrated conclusively, nevertheless the evidence so far seems to be pointing to a causal connection. As more data becomes available from the VAD group, I will post it on this website. Meanwhile, I recommend the following articles by the VAD group: "Vibro-Acoustic Disease (VAD) <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Branco_&_Alves-Pereira,_Vibroacoustic_Disease.pdf> " (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Branco_&_Alves-Pereira,_Vibroacoustic_Disease.pdf <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Branco_&_Alves-Pereira,_Vibroacoustic_Disease.pdf> ) "Vibro-Acoustic Disease in a Ten-Year-Old Male <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_grain_elevator_VAD.pdf> " (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_grain_elevator_VAD.pdf) "Vibro-Acoustic Disease <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_&_Branco,_Vibroacoustic_disease.pdf> : Biological effects of infrasound and low frequency noise" (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_&_Branco,_Vibroacoustic_disease.pdf <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_&_Branco,_Vibroacoustic_disease.pdf> ) Letter from Professor Alves-Pereira to Nina Pierpont regarding Vibro-Acoustic Disease <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_to_Pierpont_re._VAD.pdf> 3-30-06 (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Alves-Pereira_to_Pierpont_re._VAD.pdf) "Vibro-Acoustic Disease <http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Marciniak_et_al,_Echocardiographic_evaluation.pdf> : Echocardiographic evaluation in aeronautical workers exposed to different noise environments" (click on http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Marciniak_et_al,_Echocardiographic_evaluation.pdf)