(UPDATED) #Fukushima I NPP Accident WAS a Nuclear Disaster Even If No One Died of Acute Radiation Sickness

(UPDATE 2) Further pondering on Dr. Allison's reply, I think Dr. Allison may be confusing the "science" with "natural phenomenon" such as radiation.

Science is a systematic organization of knowledge gained from hypothesizing, speculating, observing, testing. Science is not free of non-scientific intrusion or intervention, and is limited by available technologies to observe and test at any given time in history. The earth going around the sun was a natural phenomenon from the beginning of time, but it was not part of the accepted science, and the proponent was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. That the earth's crust is made up of plates is a fact, but it was not at all part of the accepted Earth science until mid 1960s.

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(UPDATED with Dr. Allison's reply, at the bottom. 10/15/2013)

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That's in my humble opinion, but yet another nuclear expert tells me I'm mistaken.

Probably after seeing the post about the South African nuclear physicist, Dr. Wade Allison, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Oxford, kindly sent me links to support their position, which I thought I might share with you readers:

...not even a significant casualty from radiation. This was expected as soon as figures for the scale of the radiation released became apparent, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842 Much suffering and death would have been avoided if the evacuees had gone home within two weeks. http://www.radiationandreason.com/uploads//enc_RadiationScienceandSocietyOct2013.pdf 

No surprise http://www.radiationandreason.com/uploads//enc_FukushimaGoianiaInternal.pdf 

an international scientific view http://www.radiationandreason.com/uploads//enc_SPUR-1.pdf  with unfiltered public comment  overwhelmingly supportive http://www.radiationandreason.com/index.php?SPUR-RnR 

See also other links at www.radiationandreason.com 

Wade Allison

Wade Allison, MA DPhil
Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Oxford, UK OX1 3PG

"Radiation and Reason"  http://www.radiationandreason.com (Oct 09) ISBN 9780956275615
In Japanese http://goo.gl/9lL5u (July 2011) ISBN 978-4198632182

In Chinese http://www.cptw.com.tw/BookDetail.aspx?BOKNO=11252010 

"Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging"  http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-920389-X (Oct 06)

Here's my quick email back to Dr. Allison, though it is highly likely we simply talk past each other:

Dr. Allison, I do not think nuclear technology exists in vacuum. In case of Japan, as in other countries, building nuclear power plants has been the national government's policy. It's been heavily subsidized by the government, with plant builders, operators, and municipalities showered with enormous amount of money and preferential treatment. Regulatory agencies collaborated and colluded with the plant operators to mask technical problems, for decades. Nuclear scientists have been enlisted to "educate" the populace how safe the nuclear power plants are. The populace have been encouraged to use more and more electricity even where cheaper alternatives exist, which in turn has justified more nuclear power plants. Particularly in Japan, nuclear power plants have been made possible only by cheap, subcontracted labor force who operates and maintains the plants, with hardly any medical supervision and with faked cumulative dose. Most people turned the blind eye to that fact, until this accident.

When the shit hit the fan in Fukushima, it was not just the matter of whether anyone died of acute radiation sickness that defined the accident as "nuclear". It was the failure of the national and local government on responding to a rapidly unfolding nuclear accident at Fukushima I NPP. It was the failure of the plant operator TEPCO who couldn't do what it took to contain the accident, as they were more concerned with pleasing the national government and the nuclear regulator. It was the failure of the nuclear regulatory and safety agencies (the latter staffed with nuclear scientists from top universities) to even adequately assess the progress of core melt and the release (intended and unintended) of radioactive materials from the plant that contaminated the wide areas in Tohoku and Kanto and inform the populace intelligently. It was the failure of academia who not only failed to give actionable information to the citizens but ended up exposing the citizens to totally unnecessary, avoidable radiation; Dr. Yamashita gathered Fukushima residents to tell them not to worry, while a fresh batch of dense radioactive plume was descending in Fukushima between March 20 and 23, 2011.

The jury is still out on the long-term effect of low-dose radiation exposure. The plant workers have been exposed to moderate to high dose of radiation over the past two and a half years, and you cannot compare this exposure to a targeted, medically supervised high-radiation treatment.

It was, and is a nuclear disaster politically, socially, academically, psychologically, and for many, personally. To claim Fukushima was not a nuclear disaster just because no one died of acute radiation exposure is nothing but sophistry.

Regards

10/15/2013 Dr. Wade Allison's reply, saying I have a nuclear fear from Cold War (I doubt it, but) and the science is impervious to any political, social, and other types of consideration. In other words, we do talk past each other:

As the story of King Canute demonstrated many years ago, the forces of science (physics/biology/medicine) are uninfluenced by man's intrigues which you describe. These are irrelevant when radiation meets living tissue -- about which almost all is now known. Radiation as a danger is irrelevant to the survival of man, but population, food, water, economic and political stability, and climate stability are not. Of course if nobody can trust anybody else, as you suggest, the population that the world can support would be tiny. That would be destructive for no reason and would result in widespread conflict.

You are still in the grip of the nuclear fear that was Cold War propaganda for which there is no scientific basis. I agree that you are not alone, but scientific reality is not settled by a vote. Science is impervious to questions of shit and fan.

Regards
Wade

Well Dr. Allison, the lesson, if any, from Fukushima nuclear accident is that "the forces of science (physics/biology/medicine)" were and are indeed influenced by man's intrigues. Declaring they are uninfluenced doesn't make it true. So many scientists in nuclear physics, engineering, biology, and medicine have rushed to speak words designed specifically to tell the populace that everything was OK, and their words had nothing to do with hard science. The government scientists conducted the medical survey of the residents in the affected areas in Fukushima, not because they wanted to collect scientific information but because they wanted to calm down the residents.

Instead of scientifically and rationally explain what's been going on, nuclear scientists and their followers on the side of Dr. Allison, label people, like me who raises questions on both sides, as being gripped with irrational nuclear fear. And of course those experts and their followers on the other side label people like me as "nuclear shill". Can't win either way.

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FT: "Divisions over radiation risk have been exposed after Fukushima"

The article written by Mure Dickie and Clive Cookson for Financial Times that appeared in November last year seems to have engendered a lively discussion in the comment section regarding what is the "safe" radiation dose, if there is one.

From Financial Times (11/11/2011):

Nuclear energy: A hotter topic than ever

By Mure Dickie and Clive Cookson

Divisions over radiation risk have been exposed after Fukushima

In front of the government office in Japan’s Iitate village, the radiation monitor – a large metal box topped by warning lights – displays airborne levels in real time on a glowing digital display. A handheld dosimeter carried by local forester Toru Anzai gives more personal readings. In the nearby prefectural capital, sophisticated germanium detectors hum into the night analysing the radioactivity of local foods.

Eight months after a tsunami sent the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power station into near meltdown, data are pouring in across Japan on the scale of contamination caused by the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. Yet none of these detectors or their data can tell their users just how worried they should be. For the crisis has laid bare an absence of scientific and social consensus on radiation risk, which is undermining a disaster response already weakened by fractious leadership and an often slow-moving bureaucracy.

Uncertainty about radiation danger is not a problem for Japan alone. Atomic plants around the world are ageing fast, and more are being built in developing countries where there is often limited public oversight and high levels of corruption. It would be foolish for the world to assume that this crisis will be the last.

On one side, analysts say bowing to exaggerated fears of radiation will stunt global development of nuclear power, slowing economic growth and increasing pollution and global warming from fossil fuels. On the other, experts accuse the nuclear industry and government officials of playing down the dangers.

In May, radiation safety researcher Toshiso Kosako tearfully resigned as a scientific adviser to Japan’s prime minister after the government decided to set the limit for exposure in schools at 20 millisieverts a year, a level usually applied to nuclear industry workers. “It’s unacceptable to apply this figure to infants, toddlers and primary school pupils,” Professor Kosako said.

But Wade Allison of Oxford university says the 20mSv a year limit for evacuation should be raised to 100mSv a month, arguing that the principal health threat posed by the Fukushima Daiichi crisis is “fear, uncertainty and enforced evacuation”.

Underlying such stark differences lies a lack of clarity about what radiation does to the body at doses below 100mSv per year, the level at which an increase in cancer becomes clearly evident in epidemiological surveys. Prof Allison and many other scientists believe that, below a certain threshold, radiation is likely in effect to do no harm to health at all. However, the mainstream assumption is that even very low doses carry some risk, even if it is not yet measurable.

The result has been highly precautionary limits on artificial radiation exposure, such as an international safety standard for the public of just 1mSv in a year. That is less than half the exposure most people receive naturally from background radioactivity in rocks, soil and building materials, and from cosmic rays. This may make sense in normal times – but it means that in a crisis people tend to assume exposure above the limit is dangerous. The problem for authorities is that it is next to impossible to judge exactly at what point it will be safer to move a population away from the radiation or to limit its exposure by, for example, keeping children indoors and closing schools. Such moves themselves have health risks: evacuation can kill the elderly and thrust younger people into unemployment. Disrupted education can mar children’s future careers. Loss of exercise habits makes people vulnerable to illness and obesity.

David Boilley, a nuclear physicist and head of the French citizens’ radiation testing group Acro, believes the Japanese evacuation line of 20mSv a year is too high, but acknowledges that a 1mSv level would be unrealistic. French government experts have suggested setting the evacuation trigger at 10mSv per year – although this could mean adding another 70,000 people to the 150,000-200,000 evacuated from areas near Fukushima Daiichi.

“Evacuation is terrible [and we] need to weigh the burden and benefit,” says Mr Boilley, whose group is helping with monitoring in Fukushima, adding that the appropriate trigger point varies not only by area and exposure but also by individual. “Where to put it? That’s a very hard question,” he says. “I am happy I am not a politician who has to decide.”

(Full article and the comment section at the link)

Professor Wade Allison left his comment, saying:

I have written and explained in accessible language, but in some depth, why the evacuation level should have been set in the region of 100 millisievert per month, that is 1200 per year -- that is 60 times the current value, not five times, as quoted in this FT article.

Hey that means I was right, saying in my post that Professor Allison's annual limit was 1.2 sievert...

(H/T TS)

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Vanity Fair: US Medical Researcher Robert Peter Gale Reassures Fuku-I Workers "Nothing to Worry About"

Following Dr. Wade Allison (1 sievert/year is safe) and Dr. Theodore Rockwell ("Let people of Fukushima return!") here's Dr. Robert Peter Gale, who actually went to Fukushima Prefecture at least and told the workers at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant not to worry too much and not be caught in a radiation "hysteria".

Dr. Gale tells a worker who's getting 1.67 millisievert every 2 hours that it's OK up to 250 millisieverts under the circumstances.

The Vanity Fair magazine article doesn't say under what circumstance Dr. Gale went to Fukushima. I can't figure out the reason why Vanity Fair wrote this article either.

From Vanity Fair January issue "Heroes of the Hot Zone" by Pico Iyer:

Ever since the tsunami triggered a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last March, Japanese workers—some 18,000 to date—have been heading into the radioactive exclusion zone to work on the cleanup. Pico Iyer trails radiation expert Dr. Robert Gale, a veteran of Chernobyl and nearly every major nuclear disaster since, to learn who these anonymous heroes in HAZMAT suits are, what motivates them, and the danger they calmly accept. In addition, photographer James Nachtwey gets rare portraits of some of these brave workers.

he three men, all in their 30s, might be any construction workers knocking back Sapporos at a tiny izakaya, or neighborhood bar. Around them is the friendly clutter of any small, working-class drinking place in Japan. Fading calendar portraits of a favorite singer fill every last inch of wall space not given over to bright posters for ocean resorts, photos of kimonoed actresses striking classical poses, or plaques on which celebrities have inscribed their autographs. There’s even a framed snapshot of the old-broad proprietress next to the celebrated tough-guy director and TV star Beat Takeshi.

One patron is missing many of his teeth and has the intense, staring eyes of the slightly too ferocious guerrilla in a samurai movie. Clad in a blue tracksuit and tennis shoes, 34-year-old Hideyaki Kusumoto leans forward and addresses practically the only foreigner to be seen in the town—a small, trim man, dressed in a summery pink sweater and Stabilicore running shoes, with a deep tan and gray appearing along the sides of his thin reddish hair.

“Doctor, I know about the workers in Chernobyl who’ve suffered. Am I at risk?”

“It takes about 30 or 40 years to get cancer from radiation, except among children,” the visiting American says in the calm, clarifying tones of a seasoned physician. “So if workers from Chernobyl have cancer now, it’s probably not because of radiation.”

“But I’m working in a place where the radiation is really high,” says a colleague in thick black glasses, 30-year-old Masaya Ishikawa. “I work two hours a day. I get 1.67 millisieverts every two hours.”

He pulls from his wallet a sheaf of tiny white receipts on which his daily radiation dose at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, crippled by the earthquake and tsunami of last March, is given to him every day. “I know that cancer will appear only 30 or 40 years later, but what about other diseases? What’s the maximum exposure I should get? At what levels of radiation do the white blood cells start decreasing?”

“About 1,000 millisieverts,” says Robert Gale, a hematologist, oncologist, and expert on bone-marrow transplants who has become one of the strongest voices for the controversial position that fear about radiation at Fukushima is overblown.

“So, 250 millisieverts is O.K.?”

“It’s O.K. under these circumstances. But it’s best not to go over that.”

The doors slide open, admitting the warmth of a late-October evening, and two older men dressed all in black, with white shirts and black ties—the kind of dress the Japanese usually favor only for funerals—come in, take the last two seats at the bar, and order Kirins.

Kusumoto leans forward again, well into his third or fourth beer, and says to his new friend, “When you were at Chernobyl, were they wearing protective suits? Should we?”

“You need a balance,” replies the doctor, who has come today for the first time to the hot-springs resort of Iwaki Yumoto, just outside the “exclusion zone” that encircles the nuclear plant with a radius of 12 miles now. “We started out wearing the radiation-protective suits in Chernobyl, but it made us move very slowly, because they’re so heavy. So people ended up getting more radiation because they were wearing these heavy clothes. It was better to work very fast, without protection, than very slowly with protection. In the end, we didn’t wear any protective clothing.”

Ishikawa has already said that he’s come up to work here, helping to clean up the stricken plant, in part because he remembers the earthquake that hit his hometown of Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,000 people. “Of course the salary is good,” he says, “but I also felt, as a former victim of an earthquake, I should help.”

Now he eyes the doctor again.

“Can my work here affect my family members and friends?”

“A good question. The answer is no.”

“Good. I have four children.”

“The radiation goes through you,” Gale explains. “So when you go home, none of this will affect them. They’re completely safe.”

He pauses for a moment. “We have to think of two kinds of radiation,” he goes on. “This mug of beer is radioactive. Radiation is coming from me. That’s one kind, the most important kind, which is internal. There’s another kind that gets on our skin and is only external. That’s not so important, though it looks as if it should be.”

“It’s like these clothes, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Great! I’m sorry to ask you this. But some friends of mine from Osaka are coming up here to work, and I feel responsible for them.”

(The article continues at the link.)

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The American Spectator Magazine: "Let the People of Fukushima Go Home and Get Back to Work"

In an article written by Dr. Theodore Rockwell and posted on December 6, 2011, the conservative monthly magazine says "Let the People of Fukushima Go Home and Get Back to Work: The science doesn't support the panic".

For a moment, I thought I was reading Professor Wade Allison of Oxford University.

I couldn't get past the 2nd paragraph, though. I started laughing hysterically when I read:

"other people are living carefree in places like Norway, Brazil, Iran, India where folks have lived normal lives for countless generations with radiation levels as much as a hundred times greater than the forbidden areas of the Fukushima homes."

A hundred times greater??

The author of the article is saying people have lived happily in those areas with radiation levels exceeding 90 sieverts per year, then. That should be news to those people.

In a location in Okuma-machi, within 3 kilometers from the stricken plant, the air radiation level at 1 meter off the ground was 103.66 microsieverts/hour according to the measurement conducted by the town on September 13 and 14. The cumulative annual radiation exposure, if simply multiplying this number by 24 (per day) and then by 365, would be 908 millisieverts.

The author also seems to think nothing of the fact that people in Fukushima have lived there for generations with a low radiation level. The national average for Japan was 1.4 - 1.5 millisievert per year.

Not to mention that many "good people" in those high-radiation 20-kilometer radius areas in Fukushima DO NOT want to go back.

I became fearful that Dr. Rockwell might soon launch into radioactive potassium in bananas, so I stopped reading. But here it is, for your perusal.

From The American Spectator (12/6/2011):

The front-page story in the Washington Post on Sunday November 20 vividly portrayed the horrors of the evacuated zones around Fukushima with unforgettable imagery. A natural reaction is to call for more restrictive safety measures. But one point was not made clear: No one, not one single person, has received a life-altering injury from radiation since the disaster started unfolding last March. The atrocities described are caused by the application of international radiation standards that are set at levels far below where science shows adverse health effects occur, and by the fear of radiation that policy creates and nurtures. Once again, fear of radiation does more harm that the radiation itself.

The reality is that, while some people in the Fukushima housing area are wearing cumbersome rad-con suits, filtered gas-masks, gloves and booties, and putting the same on their children, other people are living carefree in places like Norway, Brazil, Iran, India where folks have lived normal lives for countless generations with radiation levels as much as a hundred times greater than the forbidden areas of the Fukushima homes.

The use of inappropriate radiation standards is not an abstract issue. People around Fukushima are being told they cannot return home for an indeterminate period -- perhaps years. And efforts to decontaminate their home sites to these standards may include stripping off all the rich top-soil and calling it RadWaste. People who were evacuated have been reduced to economic poverty, clinical depression, and even suicide.

There is good scientific evidence that, except for some hot spots, the radiation levels at these home-sites are not life-threatening. The current restrictions are based on a misguided desire to be "prudent." No matter how well intended, this "prudence" is cruelly destructive. Many radiation protectionists, such as Myron Pollycove, MD, former special assistant to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dr. Jerry Cuttler, former President of the Canadian Nuclear Society, and Abel Gonzales of Brazil, vice-chair of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, are beginning to feel unhappy about the harm their rules have caused and are joining in the cry for quick action as the Japanese head into winter.

In 2002, U.S. Regulatory Report NCRP-136 examined the question of establishing permissible radiation limits. After looking at the data, it concluded that most people who get a small dose of nuclear radiation are not harmed by it, and in fact are benefited. That's what the science said: Most people would benefit by receiving more radiation, within the hormetic range. "Benefit" means the incidence of cancer and genetic damage would be less than it would be without the additional radiation.

But curiously, the report's final conclusion was just the opposite. It recommended that our regulations should be based on the unsupported premise that any amount of radiation, no matter how small, should be considered harmful. It justified that recommendation as "conservative" or "prudent." Let's think about that. Why is it prudent do just the opposite of what the science indicates? Why is exaggerating a panicky situation considered prudent? I've never seen a good answer to that.

Last month, British radiation expert Wade Allison, author of Radiation and Reason, addressed the people on Japanese television. He proposed that radiation limits be set the same way other such limits are set -- not by seeing how little we can obtain, but what is the maximum we can tolerate, including a generous safety factor. The answer he gets is about 1,000 times the current "permissible limit."

Who gave the radiation police the right to give their particular concern priority over all other considerations? That question is not limited to Japan. A proposed European Community directive dated 17 Oct 2011 notes that the doses of radiation being regulated are small compared to doses people receive in the normal course of living. Instead of reaching the common-sense conclusion that they should therefore stop trying to regulate harmless doses of radiation, they decided they have to regulate Nature! They want us to wage an endless war against our naturally radioactive planet, when there is good evidence that without radiation, Life withers and dies.

Few if any people decide where to live, or how to live, on the basis of radiation level. There is no reason that they should start doing so now. Let the good people of Fukushima return home and get on with their lives!

Oh I see. The author does quote Dr. Allison.

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The Economist: Oxford Professor Says OK to Raise Annual Dose Limit by 1000 Times for the Japanese, But the Reporter Reluctant to Inhale

the air in Iitate-mura, 45 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The Economist article mentions Oxford Professor Emeritus Wade Allison in passing toward the end, and that is more interesting than the article itself, which is nonetheless copied below. (Scroll down to Professor Allison's thinking presented below the article.)

The Economist's article on October 8, 2011 titled "Hot spots and blind spots":

CREST the hill into the village of Iitate, and the reading on a radiation dosimeter surges eightfold—even with the car windows shut. “Don’t worry, I’ve been coming here for months and I’m still alive,” chuckles Chohei Sato, chief of the village council, as he rolls down the window and inhales cheerfully. He pulls off the road, gets out of the car and buries the dosimeter in the grass. The reading doubles again.

Iitate is located 45km (28 miles) from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant hit by a tsunami on March 11th this year. In the mountains above the town, the forests are turning the colour of autumn. But their beauty is deceptive. Every time a gust of wind blows, Mr Sato says it shakes invisible particles of radioactive caesium off the trees and showers them over the village. Radiation levels in the hills are so high that villagers dare not go near them. Mr Sato cannot bury his father’s bones, which he keeps in an urn in his abandoned farmhouse, because of the dangers of going up the hill to the graveyard.

Iitate had the misfortune to be caught by a wind that carried radioactive particles (including plutonium) much farther than anybody initially expected after the nuclear disaster. Almost all the 6,000 residents have been evacuated, albeit belatedly, because it took the government months to decide that some villages outside a 30km radius of the plant warranted special attention. Now it offers an extreme example of how difficult it will be to recover from the disaster.

That is mainly because of the enormous spread of radiation. Recently the government said it needed to clear about 2,419 square kilometres of contaminated soil—an area larger than greater Tokyo—that received an annual radiation dose of at least five millisieverts, or over 0.5 microsieverts an hour. That covered an area far beyond the official 30km restriction zone (see map). Besides pressure- hosing urban areas, this would involve removing about 5cm of topsoil from local farms as well as all the dead leaves in caesium-laden forests.

However, Iitate’s experience suggests the government may be underestimating the task. Villagers have removed 5cm of topsoil from one patch of land, but because radioactive particles continue to blow from the surrounding trees, the level of radiation remains high—about one microsievert an hour—even if lower than in nearby areas. Without cutting down the forests, Mr Sato reckons there will be a permanent risk of contamination. So far, nobody has any idea where any contaminated soil will be dumped.

The second problem is children’s health. On September 30th the government lifted an evacuation advisory warning to communities within a 20-30km radius of the plant. The aim was partly to show that the authorities were steadily bringing the crippled reactors under control.

But these areas are still riddled with radiation hot spots, including schools and public parks, which will need to be cleaned before public confidence is restored. Parents say they are particularly concerned about bringing their children back because the health effects of radiation on the young are so unclear. What is more, caesium particles tend to lurk in the grass, which means radiation is more of a risk at toddler height than for adults. In Iitate, Mihori Takahashi, a mother of two, “believes only half of what the doctors say” and says she never wants to bring her children back. That, in itself, may be a curse. “The revival of this town depends on the children returning,” says Mr Sato.

And even if people return, Mr Sato worries how they will make a living. These are farming villages, but it will take years to remove the stigma attached to food grown in Fukushima, he reckons. He is furious with Tokyo Electric Power, operator of the plant, for failing to acknowledge the long-term impacts of the disaster. He says it is a way of scrimping on compensation payouts.

One way to help overcome these problems would be to persuade people to accept relaxed safety standards. A government panel is due to propose lifting the advisory dose limit above one millisievert per year. This week in Tokyo, Wade Allison, a physics professor at Oxford University, argued that Japan’s dose limit could safely be raised to 100 millisieverts, based on current health statistics. Outside Mr Sato’s house, however, a reading of the equivalent of 150 millisieverts a year left your correspondent strangely reluctant to inhale.

Dr. Wade Allison is professor emeritus of physics (particle physics) at Oxford University. The event that the Economist's reporter refers to in the article must be the talk given at American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) on October 3, where the professor, along with another researcher, presented the strong case that the radiation exposure below 100 millisieverts per year was not a problem, if one only gets rid of the unreasonable fear of radiation. He also says the current food regulation, evacuation regulation are "unreasonable" and should be relaxed significantly.

Here's the screen capture of a page from his presentation slides he used in the ACCJ talk:

He criticizes the ICRP recommendation for radiation dose, and suggests we ditch the ICRP's "As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA)" and adopt "As High As Relatively Safe (AHARS)".

And what is his AHARS level recommendation? His recommendation seems to be based on the therapeutic, targeted doses used in cancer treatment. Here's his slide page 17:

• 100 mSv max single dose

• 100 mSv max in any month

• 5000 mSv max lifelong

100 millisieverts max in any month makes the annual limit of 1,200 millisieverts, or 1.2 sievert. Professor Allison must think that level is an emergency level, as he puts the lifelong max at 5 sieverts.

There you go, Japanese government. Just wholeheartedly embrace the professor's recommendation, and you don't need to do a thing. No decon, no health monitor, no compensation to pay. Even in Okuma-machi and Futaba-machi in Fukushima right outside the plant, everyone can live happily at least for 5 to 10 years at least till they exceed 5 sieverts max for the lifetime. Fuku-I plant workers can continue to work at the plant much, much longer. No one has reached 1.2 sievert yet.

(Why did the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan invite Professor Allison? What was the purpose? Does anyone know?)

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