AMA not qualified to judge wind turbine noise emissions
J A Rovensky, 26 March 2014
AMA President Dr. Steve Hambleton
Vice President Professor Geoffrey Dobb
Members of AMA Federal Council
Dear Dr Hambleton
I wish to make the following statement re the AMA’s Position Statement with respect to ‘Wind Farms and Health 2014’. And support Senator Madigan’s condemnation of the AMA’s stance.
I cannot believe this was prepared and agreed to by a vote of the membership of this Association. It is too soul destroying to believe that all let alone some of your profession could believe it is right or even evidence of a Duty of Care to even suggest that ‘individuals’ which they appear to lump together as a group are all succumbing to some mass hysteria due to apparent ‘health scares’ misinformation.
Yes anxiety can create health issues, but when health issues are ignored, laughed at, minimised, and ridiculed by health professionals and others then a patient’s anxiety is heightened. It is surely the duty of medical professionals to not cause or emphasize anxiety in patients, it is surely their duty to do everything they can to alleviate and find the cause of health issues before diagnosing anxiety as the problem.
The AMA’s acceptance of the Wind Energy Industry’s explanations is nothing more than a bias by what appears to be those with a vested interest in the financial viability of this industry.
You say regulation of this industry should be guided entirely by the evidence, yet this statement is made without acknowledgement of evidence contrary to what the industry wishes to be accepted, and to that which the Government has stated it will have researched. Should this medical association be making judgment on whether this industry has the right to claim to be pollutant emissions free? They are not mechanical engineers and they do not have the acoustical qualifications to make judgment on noises emitted by these Turbines. That your Association has made this statement so soon after the NHMRC has stated there is little evidence that meets their criteria, with the only one accepted from Australia being one which records problems re noise emissions, is evidence of your Associations absolute bias toward the industry.
Even if you do not support the work of those wanting reported noise emissions health issues researched, surely you cannot condone such a statement as this which depicts those suffering as being little more than ‘sponges’ for horror stories. Even you have to accept that around the world there are people that have reported adverse health effects and many of those before they even knew there were others suffering, or before anyone began to work for research into reported health issues.
Yours sincerely
J A Rovensky (Mrs)
PORT MacDONNELL, SA
26 March 2014
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/03/26/ama-not-qualified-to-judge-wind-turbine-noise-emissions/