The Waubra Foundation was an Australian lobby that opposes wind farms and promotes the controversial wind turbine syndrome. The foundation was created by Peter Mitchell, a director of several oil and gas companies. The foundation described itself as an advocacy group for properly conducted, multidisciplinary research into alleged health problems reported by people living in the vicinity of

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s and other industrial uses. The foundation is named after the town of Waubra, Victoria Australia, but is not linked to it in any other way. The town is home to the 128 turbines at

Waubra Wind Farm The Waubra wind farm is located on both sides of the Sunraysia Highway 35 km north-west of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. Upon its completion in July 2009, it was the largest wind farm in Australia and was the largest wind farm by numbe ...

Pseudoscientific claims

Claims made by the Waubra Foundation relating to wind turbine syndrome and wind farm syndrome are considered pseudoscientific and are not recognised as actual diseases by any international disease classification system, nor do they appear in any title or abstract in the

United States National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...

PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...

database. Wind turbine syndrome has been characterized as

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

. Since 2003, 25 reviews have been published of the scientific literature on wind turbines and health. These studies have consistently found no reason to believe that wind turbines are harmful to health.

History

The Foundation was originally known as the 'Waubra Disease Foundation' after claims that health problems reported by some residents of Waubra were caused by wind turbines. The Waubra Foundation has claimed that wind turbines have a mental and physical health impact on some people, largely as a result of

infrasound Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low frequency sound or incorrectly subsonic (subsonic being a descriptor for "less than the speed of sound"), describes sound waves with a Audio frequency, frequency below the lower limit of human audibility ...

. The Foundation claims the following symptoms are consistent with the impacts of wind turbine proximity: sleep disturbance, headache including

migraine Migraine (, ) is a complex neurological disorder characterized by episodes of moderate-to-severe headache, most often unilateral and generally associated with nausea, and light and sound sensitivity. Other characterizing symptoms may includ ...

tinnitus Tinnitus is a condition when a person hears a ringing sound or a different variety of sound when no corresponding external sound is present and other people cannot hear it. Nearly everyone experiences faint "normal tinnitus" in a completely ...

, ear pressure (often described as painful), balance problems / dizziness,

vertigo Vertigo is a condition in which a person has the sensation that they are moving, or that objects around them are moving, when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. It may be associated with nausea, vomiting, perspira ...

, nausea, visual blurring, irritability, problems with concentration and memory, panic episodes, and

tachycardia Tachycardia, also called tachyarrhythmia, is a heart rate that exceeds the normal resting rate. In general, a resting heart rate over 100 beats per minute is accepted as tachycardia in adults. Heart rates above the resting rate may be normal ...

(fast heart rate). In 2009, the term Wind Turbine Syndrome was coined to encompass the broad range of symptoms described by complainants living near turbines. The Foundation has published reports from sufferers of wind turbine syndrome symptoms living as far as 17 kilometres from the nearest turbine. In November 2013, Senator Richard Di Natale, at that time health spokesperson for the

Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly referred to simply as the Greens, are a Left-wing politics, left-wing green party, green Australian List of political parties in Australia, political party. As of 2025, the Greens are the third largest politica ...

, and former

general practitioner A general practitioner (GP) is a doctor who is a Consultant (medicine), consultant in general practice. GPs have distinct expertise and experience in providing whole person medical care, whilst managing the complexity, uncertainty and risk ass ...

, lodged a written complaint with both the

Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the regulatory authority for charities and not-for-profit organisations within Australia. The Commission was established in December 2012 as part of the ''Australian Charitie ...

(ACNC) and the Australian Tax Office, questioning the Waubra Foundation's qualification as a health promotion charity, on the basis that the foundation’s claims are false and misleading, and that they might actually be causing harm. On 11 December 2014, the ACNC revoked the foundation’s registration as a health promotion charity, with the Assistant Commissioner saying, "It is not possible for me to find that the Foundation's principal activity promotes the prevention or control of disease in human beings". In December 2017, the decision was affirmed after a failed appeal. As of June 2024, the foundation appeared to be inactive.

References

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External links

* https://waubrafoundation.org.au/ Political advocacy groups in Australia Wind power in Australia