Nina Pierpont

Early Life
Dr. Pierpont grew up in Connecticut, in a family of teachers and writers. Her grandfather was a medical doctor and ecologist. She attended New Canaan Country School and Milton Academy. She then went on to attend Yale on a National Merit Scholarship. In 1985 she earned a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology at Princeton, did a post-doctoral fellowship in ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History (NYC) and, at the age of thirty-two, went to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she earned the M.D. degree (1991). She completed internship at the Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, D.C., and residency at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH.
Career
Dr. Pierpont describes herself as an unabashed lover of wildness. She conducted her Ph.D. research living in a tent in the Amazon jungle, studying bird behavior. In pursuit of wildness and native cultures, Pierpont and her husband lived for two years with Yup’ik Eskimos on the Alaska tundra, near the Bering Sea. (She was appointed chief of pediatrics at a native-run hospital serving an area the size of the State of Oregon.) Likewise she spent a summer living on the Navajo reservation (doing a sub-internship in medical school).
Following Alaska, Pierpont ran a general pediatrics practice (1996-99) in Malone, Franklin County, NY—the poorest county in the state. During these years she was also the pediatrician for the St. Regis Mohawk Nation (Hogansburg, NY). For the next three years (2000-03) she was Senior Attending in Pediatrics at Bassett Healthcare, Cooperstown, NY, and was Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.
Nina Pierpont is a board certified pediatrician licensed in the State of New York and Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She currently lives and practices medicine in Malone, NY, running an old-fashioned doctor's office out of her home. Pierpont limits her practice to behavioral medicine, seeing both adults and (chiefly) children. She has done extensive post-graduate training in behavioral medicine, which she has integrated with her doctoral training in behavioral ecology.
Wind Turbine Syndrome
Dr. Pierpont is best known for her pioneering research on the effects of industrial wind turbines on human health. She is the internationally recognized expert on "Wind Turbine Syndrome," a name she coined.
Pierpont has identified the following cluster of symptoms among many people living near wind turbines. In "Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment" (Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books, in press) she explains how these symptoms result from turbine low frequency noise scrambling the body's balance, motion, and position sensors.
# sleep disturbance
# headache
# tinnitus (pronounced “tin-uh-tus”: ringing or buzzing in the ears)
# ear pressure
# dizziness (a general term that includes vertigo, lightheadedness, sensation of almost fainting, etc.)
# vertigo (clinically, vertigo refers to the sensation of spinning, or the room moving)
# nausea
# visual blurring
# tachycardia (rapid heart rate)
# irritability
# problems with concentration and memory
# panic episodes associated with sensations of internal pulsation or quivering, which arise while awake or asleep
Scientific acceptance
Dr. Nina Pierpont’s report, "Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment" (Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books, in press) has undergone extensive peer review:
*Professor Robert May, Baron May of Oxford, PhD OM AC Kt FRS. Professor May holds a professorship jointly at Oxford University and Imperial College, London, and is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. President of the Royal Society (2000-05), Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the UK Office of Science and Technology (1995-2000), and member of the UK Government’s Climate Change Committee (an independent body established by the Climate Change Bill, to advise on targets and means of achieving them).
*F. Owen Black, MD, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Senior Scientist and Director of Neuro-Otology Research, Legacy Health System, Portland, Oregon.
*Jerome Haller, MD, Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics (retired 2008), Albany Medical College, Albany, New York.
*Joel F. Lehrer, MD, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Former Professor of Otolaryngology, Mt. Sinai School of Medficine (NYC) and currently Clinical Professor of Otolaryngology, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey.
*Ralph V. Katz, DMD, MPH, PhD, Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology & Health Promotion, New York University College of Dentistry.
*Henry S. Horn, PhD, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Associate of the Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University.
*Robert Y. McMurtry, MD, Emeritus Professor and Dean of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario Schulich School of Medicine. In 1999 McMurtry became the first Cameron Visiting Chair at Health Canada—a post carrying the responsibility for providing policy advice to the Deputy Minister and Minister of Health for Canada. McMurtry is the founding Assistant Deputy Minister of the Population and Public Health Branch of Health Canada.
Articles by Nina Pierpont
*Health, Hazard, and Quality of Life near Wind Power Installations: How Close Is too Close? (2005)
*Noisy Wind and Hot Air (2005)
*Health Effects of Wind Turbine Noise (2006)
*Wind Turbine Syndrome: Testimony before the New York State Legislature Energy Committee (2006)
*Wind Turbine Syndrome: Noise, Shadow Flicker, and Health (2006)
*Global Warming and Industrial Wind Energy Development (2007)
Books
*Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment (to be released in mid-2009) published by K-Selected Books (Santa Fe, NM)

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