--- title: "Forty People Will Wear A Meter For A Year. They Picked Them." dek: "In May we printed that the cumulative study needed doing, cost more than we had, and would be run on the campaigners' terms if it ever happened. It is happening. Here is the protocol, a year before the result." kind: news (News) desk: The Signal author: Dev Rajagopal and Dr. Ilse Vantongeren (fictional) published: 2026-08-10T15:00:00Z url: https://theyburied.com/article/forty-meters-one-year tags: dosimetry, pre-registration, radiofrequency, protocol, running story genre: satire status: fiction — nothing in this story happened; every person, source and document is invented --- # Forty People Will Wear A Meter For A Year. They Picked Them. *In May we printed that the cumulative study needed doing, cost more than we had, and would be run on the campaigners' terms if it ever happened. It is happening. Here is the protocol, a year before the result.* This story has no findings. It is a protocol, printed a year and three months before the result, because in May this newspaper told its readers that if the study ever happened it would be run on the campaigners' terms and the protocol would be published first. This is that. > **Figure:** What has happened, and what this newspaper is committing to — see https://theyburied.com/article/forty-meters-one-year ## What we said in May We measured forty-one sites, all chosen by the people who believe the masts are dangerous. The highest reading anywhere was 0.40 per cent of the public exposure limit. Then we printed their reply, which made a point this desk thought was correct and still does: **an instantaneous measurement is not a cumulative one.** A meter held at a school gate for ninety seconds does not tell you what a child accumulates in a year. Nobody had funded that study. We wrote that we would like to, that it cost more than we had, and that if it happened, they would choose the participants and we would publish the protocol first. ## What is now agreed Forty people will wear a personal dosimeter for twelve months. The campaign group chooses all forty. This newspaper has no say in who they are and will not be told the names until the meters are issued. The meters weigh 84 grams and have no display. A wearer cannot read their own exposure, and neither can we, until the year is over. > We would rather sit with a number we asked for than argue for another ten years about one nobody collected. > > — Parents Against Masts ## The argument we had, and lost half of They asked that participants be told their own readings as the year went on. A person wearing a meter, they said, has a right to know what it says about their own body. We refused, and the reason is in our hygienist's design note: a person who sees a high reading changes where they spend their time, and then the study measures the change instead of the exposure. They accepted the reason. Their full statement is at the foot of this page and they have not pretended to be happy about it. What they asked for instead, and got in the room: **any participant may withdraw at any moment and have their meter's data destroyed rather than used** — no reason given, no argument from anybody, including us. ## What we have given up The right to change our minds. The protocol is signed by both parties and cannot be amended once recruitment begins. That clause is theirs. It means that if the design turns out to have a flaw we did not spot, we will publish the flawed study and say so, rather than quietly improving it halfway through. We have also given up interim numbers. Nothing will be published between October and the following September. Interim results are how a study gets steered, usually by people who do not think they are steering it. ## What forty will and will not tell you Dr. Solveig Ntanda-Ferrero designed the measurement and has no view about masts, which is why we hired her. Forty is enough to characterise a distribution — to say what a year of ordinary life in this county actually accumulates, and how widely it varies between people. It is **not** enough to find a small effect on health, and she asked us to print that plainly rather than let the number imply more than it can carry. This study measures exposure. It does not measure harm, and no honest reading of it will. ## The date We will publish in November 2027, whichever way it falls. Our standards editor has noted below that a newspaper announcing its own future virtue is still a newspaper writing about itself, and that this is the second such piece this year. She is right, and the answer to it is a date rather than a paragraph. If November 2027 arrives and this newspaper has not published, a reader should assume the numbers were inconvenient and say so in the letters column, and we will have earned it. ## Sources (invented) - The signed protocol, Agreed by this newspaper and the campaign group; both signatures on it — Published in full with this story before any participant is approached (August 2026) - Parents Against Masts (Tompkins County), The campaign group; chose the sites in the May survey and will choose the participants in this one — Two meetings, minuted by them, minutes published (June–July 2026) - Dr. Solveig Ntanda-Ferrero, Occupational hygienist; runs dosimetry studies and has no view about masts — Retained to design the measurement protocol (June 2026) - The statistician who will analyse it, Retained now, paid now, named in the protocol — Has written the analysis plan already and has met nobody else in this story (July 2026) ## Documents cited (invented) - PX-2161: https://theyburied.com/vault/PX-2161 ## What we could not confirm - Everything the study is about. That is the point of publishing this now. We do not know what forty dosimeters will say and we have said in writing what we will do with the answer before we have it. - Whether forty is enough. Our hygienist says it is enough to characterise a distribution and not enough to find a small effect, and asked us to print that plainly rather than let the number imply more. - Whether the participants will be typical. They will be selected by a group with a strong prior. That is a real limitation, it was our own condition, and we would rather have it than have a sample nobody trusts. ## Right of reply **Parents Against Masts (Tompkins County)** (Asked to reply and to have the disagreement printed rather than smoothed. It is.): > We want to record that we asked for something and did not get all of it. > > We asked that participants be told their own readings as the year went on. We think a person wearing a meter has a right to know what it says about their own body, and we still think that. > > The newspaper refused. Their hygienist explained why and we understood the explanation: a person who sees a high reading changes where they spend their time, and then the study measures the change rather than the exposure. We accept that the objection is scientific and not evasive. > > What we got instead is this. Every participant may withdraw at any moment and have their meter's data destroyed rather than used, with no reason given and no argument from anybody. That was our second ask and they agreed to it in the room. > > So we are content. We chose the sites last time and we will choose the people this time, and if the numbers come back low we will have to sit with that in public, having asked for the study ourselves. > > We would rather sit with a number we asked for than argue for another ten years about one nobody collected. --- They Buried is a satirical newspaper. Every story, source, document and person in it is invented. It reports from a fictional world in which the conspiracy theories are true, with the method of a real daily.