International Panel of Experts Issue the Toronto Charter for Mental Health and Obesity

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -07/05/12)- Policy makers and health professionals have their work cut out for them when it comes to treating co-existing obesity and mental illness, if an international group of opinion leaders has their way.

In response to a worldwide epidemic of obesity and mental health disorders, the Canadian Obesity Network (CON-RCO) and the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO) in partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) organized a Hot Topic Conference on Obesity and Mental Health, in Toronto, Canada June 26th-28th.

Although obesity and mental illness are major health issues that affect millions of Canadians, the links between them are not well understood. Excess weight, beyond its adverse physiological consequences, also affects self-esteem, body image and eating behaviours while promoting depression and anxiety. The opposite is also true - a disproportionate number of patients living with mental health challenges struggle with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and premature mortality, all of which are interrelated. Both illnesses are associated with significant bias and discrimination.

As part of the event, hundreds of participants ratified the Toronto Charter for Mental Health and Obesity, a detailed call to action for health system funders, researchers and health practitioners to deal with this emerging issue. The Charter lists specific calls to action for governments and health providers to reduce the global burden of obesity and mental illness, chief among them:

 -- Mandatory education for health professionals on how to treat obesity and co-morbid mental illness.-- Immediate affirmative action by policy makers and funders to prioritize research and mandatory evaluation of interventions.-- Conducting a cost-analysis of mental illness co-morbid with obesity-- Compiling standards for responsible media coverage of obesity management and healthy body image.

The full Toronto Charter for Mental Health and Obesity can be viewed and downloaded here (http://www.obesitynetwork.ca/page.aspx?page=2899&app=182&cat1=457&tp=12&lk=no&menu=37).

"Separately, mental illness and obesity are understood to be huge health challenges, and it's an uphill battle for health systems to keep up with patients' needs," says Dr. Arya M. Sharma, scientific director for CON-RCO. "But taken together, the issue is greater than even the sum of its parts. The Charter was conceived as a discussion starter among stakeholders, and the first step towards real action."

"The fields of obesity and mental health are intimately linked, of enormous public and personal health importance but both remain under-recognized, under-resourced and under-researched," Professor Nick Finer, chair of the IASO's Education and Management Task Force, said. "It is our hope that the Charter begins to change all of that."

About the Canadian Obesity Network - Reseau canadien en obesite (CON-RCO)

CON-RCO was founded in 2006 to link the research, policy and practice communities to advance the development and delivery of effective obesity prevention and treatment solutions. The network's core strategies focus on addressing the stigma associated with excess weight, changing the way policy makers and health professionals approach obesity, and improving access to prevention and treatment resources. Currently, more than 7,000 professionals in Canada are members of the network. CON-RCO is hosted by the University of Alberta, and is based at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, AB. www.obesitynetwork.ca.

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Accretive Health Initiates Panel of Health Care Policy Experts to Establish National Standards for Health Care ...

Tue, May 15, 2012, 6:03 PM EDT - U.S. Markets closed

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Health care debate shifts to Medicare panel

NEW: Republicans say doctors will drop Medicare patients if payments are cut The House will vote Thursday on eliminating an independent panel on Medicare cuts The panel is supposed to help develop cost-saving Medicare reformsCongress has been unable to bring down Medicare costs

Washington (CNN) -- In the bitter political debate over health care reform two years ago, one of the most contentious issues was a proposed advisory board that would recommend how to achieve needed but as-yet-unreachable Medicare savings.

Opponents dubbed the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) a "death panel" that would ration medical coverage for senior citizens based on cost and effectiveness, rather than decisions reached between patient and doctor.

Supporters called such rhetoric overheated and misleading, arguing the advisory board was necessary to motivate a reluctant health care industry to adopt cost-cutting reforms that Congress had proven unwilling or unable to impose.

Now the House will consider repealing the advisory board provision this week in an election-year move that rekindles the fiery emotions of the health care fight back in 2009 and 2010.

While the repeal effort is expected to eventually fall short, it gives opponents of health care reform a rallying point for their continued efforts to undermine the 2010 law. Some of the rhetoric from two years earlier has re-emerged, such as warnings of a government takeover of health care.

"What we oppose is the president deciding who gets what," Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, told a news conference Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee told reporters that the IPAB panel was "designed to put a Washington bureaucrat between the patient and their doctor."

That's not the intent or the reality of the advisory board, insisted Dr. Donald Berwick, the former administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For example, the law targeted by the repeal effort specifically forbids the advisory board from rationing health care to reduce spending.

"We're in a very polarized era. It's hard to have rational conversations with people" on the issue, Berwick told CNN.

Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said this week that "charges that the board is going to be able to deny people care are just flat out wrong."

"The law makes every effort to restrict the board so that it can't do that," Van de Water said. "And in fact, if anything, the charge is the opposite of the truth."

The 15-member IPAB board would comprise independent experts to recommend Medicare cost reductions starting in 2015 if Congress and the health care industry and insurers fail to agree on $300 billion in savings called for in the health care reform law.

Designed as a nonpolitical solution in the event of legislative stalemate, the panel's recommendations do not require congressional approval but can be offset by Congress. Some critics, including Democrats who back health care reform, cite the independent board's relative autonomy as a reason for eliminating it.

In addition, Republican sponsors have added long-desired tort reform provisions against frivolous lawsuits to offset the cost of eliminating the panel intended to bring Medicare savings. However, the legal lobby and many Democrats oppose tort reforms, raising questions about the final makeup of the bill.

According to Berwick, opposition to the IPAB panel breaks down into three groups: a "significant minority" that hates the 2010 health care reform law and wants to scare people about it; political opponents of President Barack Obama trying to hurt his re-election chances, and health care providers and insurers "doing quite well in the status quo" who are unwilling to commit to Medicare reforms.

Despite such opposition, no one disputes the need to change Medicare in order to keep it solvent in coming decades, as baby boomers reach retirement age and flood its ranks.

Republicans who have long opposed Medicare want to lower the cost by eventually making it a subsidized program instead of a government-run system.

The House Republican budget for 2013 made public Tuesday would offer future seniors a choice of staying in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare plan or opting for a Medicare-approved private plan, all of which would be available via a new Medicare exchange.

No matter which plan they chose, including the traditional Medicare plan, seniors would receive a government subsidy to help pay for their choice.

The 2010 health care reform law sought cost reductions in Medicare through more efficient delivery of services. For example, it envisioned increased collaboration through electronic medical records to reduce repetitive and costly tests, as well as basing reimbursement on quality of care rather than quantity of services provided.

"It's conceivable you could ratchet down on payments for routine MRIs or CAT scans and use some of that money to shore up payments to providers and ... make the whole system a little more efficient," noted Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Under the law, the IPAB panel would step in if targeted cost reductions went unmet.

Those seeking repeal of the advisory board say it will lead to indiscriminate cost-cutting rather than the intended reforms to maintain Medicare's long-term solvency.

Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-New York, who practiced ophthalmology for 16 years prior to her election to Congress in 2010, said Medicare reimbursements already were being lowered to a point where some physicians cannot afford to treat Medicare patients.

"That is the last thing our seniors need," Hayworth said Wednesday. "In many practices across the country, that threat will only increase with IPAB."

Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Arkansas, said at a Monday news conference that the advisory board "will do nothing to change how Medicare works," adding "it will simply say we've run out of money, and now we're cutting."

The American Medical Association, a major physician's advocacy organization, also wants to repeal the advisory board even though it supported the broader health care reform law.

It already wrestles with what has been a 15-year problem involving Medicare reimbursements that exemplifies the difficulty of reforming the program.

The Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate provision enacted in 1997 limits increases in Medicare costs to the same rate of growth in the gross domestic product. Under the formula, the costs have repeatedly risen higher than planned.

Rather than cutting payments to Medicare doctors, Congress has regularly authorized extra money to make up the difference, with the latest so-called "doc fix" set to expire at the end of 2012.

That means doctors face a 30% cut in Medicare reimbursements from the government in January, and now the IPAB panel would be empowered to recommend steeper cuts, AMA board Chairman Dr. Robert Wah told CNN in a telephone interview.

The AMA wants Congress to stabilize funding for Medicare reimbursements for five years to allow doctors time to work out reforms outlined in the 2010 health care legislation.

According to Wah, the fear is that the IPAB panel will recommend across-the-board spending cuts that drive doctors away from Medicare patients while failing to inspire the necessary reforms.

"A board that doesn't have to answer to anybody and has the latitude to make dramatic cuts has consequences for our patients," said Wah, later adding: "It's very hard to do that kind of innovation when there is uncertainty and the threat of large cuts."

For Berwick, the question is, "how do you create the political and social will for uncomfortable changes?"

"The evidence so far is that motivation solely from inside health care, changing itself, is insufficient," he said.

CNN's Laurie Ure contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Health care debate shifts to Medicare panel

NEW: Republicans say doctors will drop Medicare patients if payments are cut The House will vote Thursday on eliminating an independent panel on Medicare cuts The panel is supposed to help develop cost-saving Medicare reformsCongress has been unable to bring down Medicare costs

Washington (CNN) -- In the bitter political debate over health care reform two years ago, one of the most contentious issues was a proposed advisory board that would recommend how to achieve needed but as-yet-unreachable Medicare savings.

Opponents dubbed the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) a "death panel" that would ration medical coverage for senior citizens based on cost and effectiveness, rather than decisions reached between patient and doctor.

Supporters called such rhetoric overheated and misleading, arguing the advisory board was necessary to motivate a reluctant health care industry to adopt cost-cutting reforms that Congress had proven unwilling or unable to impose.

Now the House will consider repealing the advisory board provision this week in an election-year move that rekindles the fiery emotions of the health care fight back in 2009 and 2010.

While the repeal effort is expected to eventually fall short, it gives opponents of health care reform a rallying point for their continued efforts to undermine the 2010 law. Some of the rhetoric from two years earlier has re-emerged, such as warnings of a government takeover of health care.

"What we oppose is the president deciding who gets what," Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, told a news conference Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee told reporters that the IPAB panel was "designed to put a Washington bureaucrat between the patient and their doctor."

That's not the intent or the reality of the advisory board, insisted Dr. Donald Berwick, the former administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For example, the law targeted by the repeal effort specifically forbids the advisory board from rationing health care to reduce spending.

"We're in a very polarized era. It's hard to have rational conversations with people" on the issue, Berwick told CNN.

Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said this week that "charges that the board is going to be able to deny people care are just flat out wrong."

"The law makes every effort to restrict the board so that it can't do that," Van de Water said. "And in fact, if anything, the charge is the opposite of the truth."

The 15-member IPAB board would comprise independent experts to recommend Medicare cost reductions starting in 2015 if Congress and the health care industry and insurers fail to agree on $300 billion in savings called for in the health care reform law.

Designed as a nonpolitical solution in the event of legislative stalemate, the panel's recommendations do not require congressional approval but can be offset by Congress. Some critics, including Democrats who back health care reform, cite the independent board's relative autonomy as a reason for eliminating it.

In addition, Republican sponsors have added long-desired tort reform provisions against frivolous lawsuits to offset the cost of eliminating the panel intended to bring Medicare savings. However, the legal lobby and many Democrats oppose tort reforms, raising questions about the final makeup of the bill.

According to Berwick, opposition to the IPAB panel breaks down into three groups: a "significant minority" that hates the 2010 health care reform law and wants to scare people about it; political opponents of President Barack Obama trying to hurt his re-election chances, and health care providers and insurers "doing quite well in the status quo" who are unwilling to commit to Medicare reforms.

Despite such opposition, no one disputes the need to change Medicare in order to keep it solvent in coming decades, as baby boomers reach retirement age and flood its ranks.

Republicans who have long opposed Medicare want to lower the cost by eventually making it a subsidized program instead of a government-run system.

The House Republican budget for 2013 made public Tuesday would offer future seniors a choice of staying in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare plan or opting for a Medicare-approved private plan, all of which would be available via a new Medicare exchange.

No matter which plan they chose, including the traditional Medicare plan, seniors would receive a government subsidy to help pay for their choice.

The 2010 health care reform law sought cost reductions in Medicare through more efficient delivery of services. For example, it envisioned increased collaboration through electronic medical records to reduce repetitive and costly tests, as well as basing reimbursement on quality of care rather than quantity of services provided.

"It's conceivable you could ratchet down on payments for routine MRIs or CAT scans and use some of that money to shore up payments to providers and ... make the whole system a little more efficient," noted Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Under the law, the IPAB panel would step in if targeted cost reductions went unmet.

Those seeking repeal of the advisory board say it will lead to indiscriminate cost-cutting rather than the intended reforms to maintain Medicare's long-term solvency.

Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-New York, who practiced ophthalmology for 16 years prior to her election to Congress in 2010, said Medicare reimbursements already were being lowered to a point where some physicians cannot afford to treat Medicare patients.

"That is the last thing our seniors need," Hayworth said Wednesday. "In many practices across the country, that threat will only increase with IPAB."

Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Arkansas, said at a Monday news conference that the advisory board "will do nothing to change how Medicare works," adding "it will simply say we've run out of money, and now we're cutting."

The American Medical Association, a major physician's advocacy organization, also wants to repeal the advisory board even though it supported the broader health care reform law.

It already wrestles with what has been a 15-year problem involving Medicare reimbursements that exemplifies the difficulty of reforming the program.

The Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate provision enacted in 1997 limits increases in Medicare costs to the same rate of growth in the gross domestic product. Under the formula, the costs have repeatedly risen higher than planned.

Rather than cutting payments to Medicare doctors, Congress has regularly authorized extra money to make up the difference, with the latest so-called "doc fix" set to expire at the end of 2012.

That means doctors face a 30% cut in Medicare reimbursements from the government in January, and now the IPAB panel would be empowered to recommend steeper cuts, AMA board Chairman Dr. Robert Wah told CNN in a telephone interview.

The AMA wants Congress to stabilize funding for Medicare reimbursements for five years to allow doctors time to work out reforms outlined in the 2010 health care legislation.

According to Wah, the fear is that the IPAB panel will recommend across-the-board spending cuts that drive doctors away from Medicare patients while failing to inspire the necessary reforms.

"A board that doesn't have to answer to anybody and has the latitude to make dramatic cuts has consequences for our patients," said Wah, later adding: "It's very hard to do that kind of innovation when there is uncertainty and the threat of large cuts."

For Berwick, the question is, "how do you create the political and social will for uncomfortable changes?"

"The evidence so far is that motivation solely from inside health care, changing itself, is insufficient," he said.

CNN's Laurie Ure contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Health care debate shifts to Medicare panel

The House will vote Thursday on eliminating an independent panel on Medicare cutsFoes of health care reform oppose the Medicare panelThe panel is supposed to help develop cost-saving Medicare reformsCongress has been unable to bring down Medicare costs

Washington (CNN) -- In the bitter political debate over health care reform two years ago, one of the most contentious issues was a proposed advisory board that would recommend how to achieve needed but as-yet-unreachable Medicare savings.

Opponents dubbed the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) a "death panel" that would ration medical coverage for senior citizens based on cost and effectiveness, rather than decisions reached between patient and doctor.

Supporters called such rhetoric overheated and misleading, arguing the advisory board was necessary to motivate a reluctant health care industry to adopt cost-cutting reforms that Congress had proven unwilling or unable to impose.

Now the U.S. House will consider repealing the advisory board provision this week in an election-year move that rekindles the fiery emotions of the health care fight back in 2009 and 2010.

While the repeal effort is expected to eventually fall short, it gives opponents of health care reform a rallying point for their continued efforts to undermine the 2010 law. Some of the rhetoric from two years earlier has re-emerged.

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That's not the intent or the reality of the advisory board, insisted Dr. Donald Berwick, the former administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For example, the law targeted by the repeal effort specifically forbids the advisory board from rationing health care to reduce spending.

"We're in a very polarized era. It's hard to have rationale conversations with people" on the issue, Berwick told CNN.

The 15-member IPAB board would comprise independent experts to recommend Medicare cost reductions starting in 2015 if Congress and the health care industry and insurers fail to agree on $300 billion in savings called for in the health care reform law.

Designed as a nonpolitical solution in the event of legislative stalemate, the panel's recommendations do not require congressional approval but can be offset by Congress. Some critics, including Democrats who back health care reform, cite the independent board's relative autonomy as a reason for eliminating it.

In addition, Republican sponsors have added long-desired tort reform provisions against frivolous lawsuits to offset the cost of eliminating the panel intended to bring Medicare savings. However, the legal lobby and many Democrats oppose tort reforms, raising questions about the final makeup of the bill.

According to Berwick, opposition to the IPAB panel breaks down into three groups: a "significant minority" that hates the 2010 health care reform law and wants to scare people about it; political opponents of President Barack Obama trying to hurt his re-election chances, and health care providers and insurers "doing quite well in the status quo" who are unwilling to commit to Medicare reforms.

Despite such opposition, no one disputes the need to change Medicare in order to keep it solvent in coming decades, as baby boomers reach retirement age and flood its ranks.

Republicans who have long opposed Medicare want to lower the cost by eventually making it a subsidized program instead of a government-run system.

The House Republican budget for 2013 made public Tuesday would offer future seniors a choice of staying in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare plan or opting for a Medicare-approved private plan, all of which would be available via a new Medicare exchange.

No matter which plan they chose, including the traditional Medicare plan, seniors would receive a government subsidy to help pay for their choice.

The 2010 health care reform law sought cost reductions in Medicare through more efficient delivery of services. For example, it envisioned increased collaboration through electronic medical records to reduce repetitive and costly tests, as well as basing reimbursement on quality of care rather than quantity of services provided.

Under the law, the IPAB panel would step in if targeted cost reductions went unmet.

Those seeking repeal of the advisory board say it will lead to indiscriminate cost-cutting rather than the intended reforms to maintain Medicare's long-term solvency.

"This particular law -- IPAB -- will do nothing to change how Medicare works," Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Arkansas, told the Monday news conference. "It will simply say we've run out of money, and now we're cutting."

The American Medical Association, a major physician's advocacy organization, also wants to repeal the advisory board even though it supported the broader health care reform law.

It already wrestles with what has been a 15-year problem involving Medicare reimbursements that exemplifies the difficulty of reforming the program.

The Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate provision enacted in 1997 limits increases in Medicare costs to the same rate of growth in the gross domestic product. Under the formula, the costs have repeatedly risen higher than planned.

Rather than cutting payments to Medicare doctors, Congress has regularly authorized extra money to make up the difference, with the latest so-called "doc fix" set to expire at the end of 2012.

That means doctors face a 30% cut in Medicare reimbursements from the government in January, and now the IPAB panel would be empowered to recommend steeper cuts, AMA board Chairman Dr. Robert Wah told CNN in a telephone interview.

The AMA wants Congress to stabilize funding for Medicare reimbursements for five years to allow doctors time to work out reforms outlined in the 2010 health care legislation.

According to Wah, the fear is that the IPAB panel will recommend across-the-board spending cuts that drive doctors away from Medicare patients while failing to inspire the necessary reforms.

"A board that doesn't have to answer to anybody and has the latitude to make dramatic cuts has consequences for our patients," said Wah, later adding: "It's very hard to do that kind of innovation when there is uncertainty and the threat of large cuts."

For Berwick, the question is, "how do you create the political and social will for uncomfortable changes."

"The evidence so far is that motivation solely from inside health care, changing itself, is insufficient," he said.

View the original article here

Health panel: Pap tests needed only every 3 years

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women only need to get a Pap test once every three years to check for cervical cancer, and don't need to be screened until age 21 - even if they're sexually active earlier, according to new guidelines from a government-backed panel.

The statement from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, released on Wednesday, aligns closely with guidelines from three U.S. cancer groups that were also announced on Wednesday.

Once they hit 30, women also have the option of getting screened once every five years if they choose to do Pap tests together with human papillomavirus (HPV) testing every time, the committees agreed.

"The bottom line is, we strongly recommend screening," said Dr. Virginia Moyer, chair of the USPSTF and a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in Dallas.

The recommendation to test every three or five years is based on evidence that cervical cancer is relatively slow-growing, she said, so it's very unlikely a woman would develop advanced cancer in the few years after a negative screening.

"The women who get and die of cervical cancer are the women who aren't getting screened," Moyer told Reuters Health. "It's not the woman who hasn't had a screen in a couple years that's the problem."

Moyer's group attracted controversy late last year when it recommended against annual prostate cancer screening in men, after concluding that the possibility the tests could invite unnecessary and potentially harmful follow-up procedures outweighed their benefits.

The USPSTF's latest recommendations are based on a review of evidence on screening's success at detecting pre-cancerous lesions, as well as both physical and psychological side effects of Pap and HPV tests. Its guidelines were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The task force found a benefit for Pap tests every three years in women age 21 to 65, or every five years when Pap tests and HPV tests are done together, starting at 30.

Screen more frequently, and the possibility of women getting complications from any related procedures - such as an exam and biopsy, called a colposcopy, following an abnormal Pap - outweighs any benefit to the extra tests.

Women under 30 shouldn't be tested for HPV because the sexually transmitted infection is common in young people and often goes away on its own, without increasing the cancer risk.

Women who are older than 65 and were screened regularly in the past are also probably in the clear, unless they're at particularly high risk due to a history of precancerous lesions.

Until there's more long-term data on women who've been vaccinated against HPV, they should continue getting normal screening, according to the report.

CANCER GROUPS AGREE

The guidelines broadly agree with others released by the American Cancer Society, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and the American Society for Clinical Pathology. Those groups favor screening with both Pap and HPV tests every five years once women hit 30, but say every three years with Pap tests alone is also acceptable. Again, they recommend screening from age 21 to 65 in most cases.

In their report, released in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and other partner journals, the group's report estimates that without screening, 31 to 33 out of every 1,000 U.S. women would be expected to get cervical cancer in their lives. With Pap tests done every three years, that falls to five to eight per 1,000.

The relative benefit is slimmer when the tests are done more frequently, but the chance of having side effects from testing is just as high each time.

"Screening too much and too sensitively finds primarily benign infections that really would be better left unfound," said Philip Castle, head of the American Society for Clinical Pathology Institute, who worked on those guidelines.

"Doing more than what's evidence-based actually has potential harms for patients, and that shouldn't be minimized."

That includes the psychological harms of being told you have an abnormal test, he said. After that, some cervical procedures done as follow-up have been shown to increase women's chances of having a premature baby later in life.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 12,000 U.S. women get cervical cancer every year - most caused by cancerous strains of HPV.

Castle said the focus needs to be on making sure that everyone gets the basic level of screening, especially poor women who live in isolated areas.

Moyer agreed that targeting those groups is going to make the biggest difference in cutting rates of new cervical cancer cases and deaths.

"We need to get the women who have not had a Pap smear in the past five years in," she said. "The women who aren't getting screened at all, that's the tragedy." SOURCES: http://bit.ly/an7XRm and http://bit.ly/yVwIPk Annals of Internal Medicine and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, online March 14, 2012.

(Editing by Michele Gershberg; Desking by Eric Walsh)

View the original article here

Mass. panel: No major health impacts from turbines

BOSTON (AP) — Wind turbines do not pose serious health risks to people living nearby, though noise from some turbines could be annoying and cause sleep disruption, a state-appointed panel of experts says in a report Tuesday.

The report was commissioned by Massachusetts public health and environmental agencies after residents who live near existing or proposed wind energy projects raised concerns.

"There is no evidence for a set of health effects ... that could be characterized as 'Wind Turbine Syndrome,'" the report concluded.

But the panel urged that more study be done on the sleep issue and also recommended that Massachusetts adopt noise limits for wind turbines similar to guidelines in place in Germany and Denmark.

Three public meetings are scheduled next month to hear comments about the report, in Boston, the Berkshires and on Cape Cod. Officials insist the findings will not be adopted or implemented until after the meetings.

In the report, the panel said it found no scientific evidence that low-frequency sound emitted by turbines affects the inner ear and balance, or the vestibular system. It also said the "weight of evidence" didn't point to any links between the turbines and diseases including diabetes, high blood pressure and migraine headaches.

"The strongest epidemiological study suggests that there is not an association between noise from wind turbines and measures of psychological distress or mental health problems," the report continued, but added that "limited evidence" exists that noise from louder turbines could cause annoyance or disrupt sleep.

Scientists on the panel said the link between turbine noise and sleep disruption was tenuous and based primarily on people who self-reported trouble sleeping.

A coalition called Windwise Massachusetts called last year for a statewide moratorium on construction of industrial wind turbines until potential health effects were studied. Representatives of the group questioned the findings of the report Tuesday. They said the panel relied on pre-existing data and studies rather than holding public hearings or speaking directly to people who claim to have been adversely affected by turbines.

"There is definitely a total lack of transparency here," said Virginia Irvine, a member of the coalition's steering committee. "The (panel) met in secret, their deliberations were in secret and it did not have any public input."

The group also questioned the objectivity of the panel, claiming at least one member had performed work on behalf of the wind energy industry and suggesting the report had a "predetermined outcome."

Gov. Deval Patrick's administration has strongly advocated for both land-based and offshore wind power and other renewable energy sources to lessen the state's dependence on fossil fuels. But Kenneth Kimmell, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, said in a conference call with reporters that members who were chosen for the panel had no preconceived views about wind turbines and no connections to either the wind industry or opponents of wind turbines.

"We believed that these are independent scientific experts who bring integrity and credibility to their task, and we are not concerned that there will be a claim that the panel had a bias," Kimmell said.

Some Cape Cod residents said they have felt low-frequency vibrations inside their homes, known as infrasound, from a turbine in Falmouth, an experience likened to "living in a drum," Irvine said. But the panel said the scientific evidence suggested that infrasound produced by wind turbines even at extremely close distances was far too low to be felt as vibrations or pressure within the human body.

Still, local residents want the state to do more study.

"We've been begging (the state) to come down and do an epidemiological study of wind turbine neighbors, and got nowhere," said Mark Cool of Falmouth. "They did not contact us for this report."

Among those praising the panel's findings was Sue Reid, head of the environmental group Conservation Law Foundation, who said it "debunks common misunderstandings regarding potential health impacts of wind turbines."

View the original article here