He is the lead author of a paper examining a condition known as vibro acoustic disease which some people say affects people living within 10km of a wind farm.

The professor says the claim is based on a single case of a 12-year-old boy with attention deficit disorder at school - the condition has received virtually no scientific recognition beyond a group of Portugese researchers who coined the term.

However, a group called the Waubra Group believes it has identified a number of medical symptoms experienced by people living near wind farms and all that the experts agree on is that more research needs to be done on the subject. 

Waubra is a small town in Victoria which has an operating wind farm.

In response to Dr Jill Laurie’s well known campaign against wind farms, professor Chapman states that the information she has received will be unpublishable in any serious research journal because she has no clearance from any institutional human ethics committee to obtain it.

 Daniel Shepherd claims that a community in the Makara valley in New Zealand, where there are wind turbines, suffered lower sleep quality and a less  restful environment than neighbours further away. 

Fiona Crichton of the University of Auckland however has provided a destructive critique of Shepherd’s paper.

The National Health and Medical Research Council has an ongoing investigation into research papers on the possible adverse effects of wind farm on health following on from the councils findings in June 2011.

Further information will no doubt surface but at present the standing of vibro acoustic disease is unproven.