Wind farm neighbors stressed, but it’s not the wind turbines

We’ve posted here in recent days about how new research results suggest more and more strongly that physical ailments attributed to wind turbine sound are actually caused by the “nocebo” (similar to placebo) effect, in which people feel symptoms they have been led to expect. If true, this would mean that anti-wind groups fanning concerns about turbine sound are themselves causing the maladies they profess to fear.

Unexpected confirmation of this line of reasoning comes from a recent article in the publication NiagaraThisWeek. It focuses on a researcher in Ontario who hopes to use a community where a wind farm is being planned to measure the facility’s before-and-after effects on nearby residents. However, when the researcher, Prof. Bill Bigelow of the University of Waterloo, met with residents of the town of West Lincoln, they told him it was “too late”–they were already severely stressed by thoughts of what the wind farm would do.

Quoting from the article:
“‘You