January 12, 2011
Australia

Waubra gets vocal in the US

By Brendan Gullifer, The Courier, thecourier.com.au 12 January 2011

Two senior US health industry executives this week conducted video interviews with more than a dozen Waubra residents, detailing health problems associated with living near wind turbines.

Mr Preston Ribnick and his wife, Lilli-Ann Green, said their visit was part of a campaign to communicate information on what is being called “wind turbine syndrome”.

“People are marginalised when they ask questions about this issue or try to bring information forward,” Mr Ribnick said. “We feel one of the biggest opportunities to bring enlightenment on this issue is the health risk, because that’s our area of expertise, health care.”

In 1979 Mr Ribnick founded the Professional Resources Group, to help physician practices improve relationships with their patients.

Mr Ribnick said his organisation had worked with 100,000 physicians and their office employees, but he called this latest venture a personal quest.

Among Mr Ribnick’s interviewees were the Dean and Stepnell families. He and his wife were planning to conduct further interviews in New South Wales and New Zealand.

Mr Ribnick said a single turbine began operating in his home town in Falmouth, Massachusetts, last year.

“And a significant number of people are now complaining of health effects and there is now a legal action against the town, which owns the turbine,” he said.

Mr Ribnick has not interviewed any Waubra residents with turbines on their properties. “We understand a number of them are sick but because they have signed confidentiality agreements they are unable to come forward,” he said.

Mr Ribnick said he planned to show the footage to audiences across America.

“We just want to let people tell their stories,” he said.

The Clean Energy Council, whose members include wind farm operators as well as the federal government’s National Health and Medical Research Council, denies evidence of any adverse health effects from wind farms.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/01/12/waubra-gets-vocal-in-the-us/