In fact, the hourly dose at Fukushima was 72,000 times the background dose.
Various statements have appeared with regard to radiation at Fukushima following the earthquake and tsunami. To pick one example:
"Radiation levels around Fukushima for one hour's exposure rose to eight times the legal limit for exposure in one year", said the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).
This statement is flagrantly, wilfully, criminally misleading. The cumulative dose is a separate issue from the pulse dose, as is obvious from radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and other forms of medical therapy. There is a reason that radiotherapy is fractionated, as is chemotherapy: the therapeutic effects have to be separated from the side effects. The fact that a plant worker received 8,000 times the yearly dose of radiation in one hour is significant, and perhaps lethal, and is nowhere recognized by TEPCO, IAEA, and various nuclear power interest groups.
