Trump claims noise from windmills causes cancer, gets mocked on social media
President Donald Trump made a bizarre claim about industrial wind turbines on Tuesday, claiming that the noise emanating from the turbine causes cancer. The claim from the President came days after he had stated on television that wind power was not a viable energy option because wind "only blows sometimes".
Trump, in wide-ranging remarks at the National Republican Congressional Committee's spring fundraiser dinner in Washington DC on Tuesday, said: "Hillary wanted to put up wind, wind."
"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations your house just went down 75% in value. And they say the noise causes cancer, you tell me," the President said as he moved his arm in circles while imitating a winding noise.
There have been multiple studies conducted on the impact of wind farms on real estate values, with some finding a negative impact on the prices of nearby homes, and others finding little or no effect. However, no studies have linked the noise emanating from industrial wind turbines to cancer. Although there is literature available describing negative health impacts from windmills, especially from noise, such as low quality of sleep, according to the Daily Mail.
A 2014 review of the literature for PloS One suggested: "Exposure to wind turbines does seem to increase the risk of annoyance and self-reported sleep disturbance."
Soon after the President made the cancer claim, many social media users took to Twitter to mock him on his remarks, with one user writing: "Yeah I hear the windmill blows the Cancer into you..."
"President Genius has a long history fighting to protect people from windmill noise cancer. Just ask the folks that live near his golf course in Scotland," another user wrote while taking a dig at Trump's opposition to wind turbines off the coast of his golf course in Scotland.
Another Twitter user questioned the source of Trump's information on the issue: "I want someone somewhere to track down 'they'. They say windmills cause cancer, they say Obama wasn't born here, they say he's the most successful POTUS ever. They seem to have a lot to say but we never know who THEY are."
President Trump, while talking to Fox News' Sean Hannity in March, had said that considering "wind only blows sometimes", producing energy from it is not a viable option.
"It’s what we have done with energy and oil and gas. That’s all competition from, for Russia," Trump said. "You look at the Ukraine. You look at so many different levels. You look at our military," he added. "You look at the fact that we would have been powered by wind, which wouldn’t have worked, by the way, because it only blows sometimes and lots of problems come about."