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I was reading this story and wanted to ask the experts in this forum about the claims:http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/08/03/japan-a-nuclear-gypsy%E2%80%99s-tale/In summary, a temporary worker doing a radiation job at Japan's Hamaoka plant received 180 mrem in a single job, and he claims to have felt nausea and other symptoms upon entering the radiation area, as a direct result of the radiation.  In addition to that, he talks about how the community of temp workers (with no education other than training for those jobs they do) shares many similar stories about people feeling immediate health effects directly from exposure to a radiation dose in those jobs.  They dramatize the stories far better than I ever could:

These sorts of stories are circulating widely around Japan due to the obvious public disposition toward nuclear power at the moment.  The past hiring practices of Japanese companies for nuclear plant outages certainly do not help either.  I know a lot of people who are interested in debunking anti-nuclear propaganda, but it's considerably more difficult to tell someone "no, you didn't feel this", although that is my expectation in this case.I'm willing to be proven wrong on that point - that no one can feel the effects of radiation below the levels conventionally accepted to have health effects, but only by people who know what they're talking about.  I'm almost sure that 180 mrem is not a level sufficient for someone to know they've been exposed at all.  I mean, if you put someone in an isolated room and gave them a radiation dose at an unspecified time and asked them to raise their hand at that moment, they would fail at that task.  To me, the obvious explanation is the powerful effects of hypochondria - convincing oneself that they are sick.  The mental connection between entering the scary plenum of a steam generator and feeling a headache is strong, so the mind can easily convince itself that it has those effects.What is the reality?  Can anyone here say what what dose rate is scientifically expected to produce a physical sensation that can be felt?  Obvious this does happen at high enough dose / dose rates, but the real question is the level it happens at.  Can anyone who has worked in the US industry claim to have felt effects from radiation exposure with any sort of veracity?

You're right. 180 would produce no acute results and a very small chance of somatic results. Here's my thoughts. Semi tropical atmosphere, no electricity, worked to the bone, stress,Lets see the effects of heat exhaustion :Symptoms of heat exhaustion include profuse sweating, weakness, nausea, vomiting, headache, lightheadedness, and muscle cramps.Effects of sleep deprivation :aching muscles, confusion, memory lapses or loss, depression, hallucinations, hand tremors, headaches,bloodshot eyesWhy radiation then? Easy answer : its there. Its a good scape goat, and something media fear mongers like that quack Dr. Kookoo (sic) can quickly resort to when asked.

This kind of posts will be “unconfirmed” forever. A Japanese citizen talked about his own symptoms on a Japanese forum. In his case, a bruise appeared on his stomach and it does not hurt even if he touches it. This is only one of the many cases posted on the internet. I expect someone who got through Chernobyl or has radioactive medical knowledge to see this picture. His symptoms are: canker sore Diarrhea ←me too Anemia Vertigo Bleeding from gum High blood pressure Nausea after eating something Itchy eyes ←me too Bad eye sight ←me too Ringing in the ears ←me too Muscle pain even though he did not work out ←me too Sore throat ←me too He suffered from these symptoms until this summer. They still come out on and off. Recently he suffers from constant pain around belly, bowel, and bladder. He analyzes it’s from internal exposure.

Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima

[...] The Japanese physicians and scientists who’d been on the scene told horrific stories of people who’d seemed unharmed, but then began bleeding from ears, nose, and throat, hair falling out by the handful, bluish spots appearing on the skin, muscles contracting, leaving limbs and hands deformed. When they tried to publish their observations, they were ordered to hand over their reports to US authorities. Throughout the occupation years (1945-52) Japanese medical journals were heavily censored on nuclear matters. In late 1945, US Army surgeons issued a statement that all people expected to die from the radiation effects of the bomb had already died and no further physiological effects due to radiation were expected. When Tokyo radio announced that even people who entered the cities after the bombings were dying of mysterious causes and decried the weapons as “illegal” and “inhumane,” American officials dismissed these allegations as Japanese propaganda.

The issue of radiation poisoning was particularly sensitive, since it carried a taint of banned weaponry, like poison gas. The A-bomb was not “an inhumane weapon,” declared General Leslie Groves, who had headed the Manhattan project. The first western scientists allowed in to the devastated cities were under military escort, ordered in by Groves. The first western journalists allowed in were similarly under military escort. Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, who managed to get in to Hiroshima on his own, got a story out to a British paper, describing people who were dying “mysteriously and horribly” from “an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague… dying at the rate of 100 a day,” General MacArthur ordered him out of Japan; his camera, with film shot in Hiroshima, mysteriously disappeared.

Ooops. Amateur hour at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare who thought testing one sample from the meat of one cow would be enough.According to Mainichi Shinbun, the Japanese authorities are finding out that the different parts of the same cow have different concentration of radioactive cesium. Not only that, the same part of the meat from the same cow can yield two different test results. That means even the meat that was tested and deemed "safe" (tested below 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium) may not have been safe after all.

Before they actually started to measure, the prevailing opinion from the radiation experts was that radioactive cesium would get evenly distributed in the muscles throughout the body. Amateur hour at the radiation experts, too. (Now they are changing tunes.)So, no one knew, and no one knows what they're doing. I seem to fondly recall some of the words of Japan's consumer advocates - "the experts say it's safe...", or "why should we waste taxpayers' money testing all cows?", or "if only media did the good job of providing accurate information..." Amateur hours there, too.My message to consumers: caveat emptor.

Japan’s six reactor Fukushima Daichi nuclear complex has inadvertently become the world’s bell-weather poster child for the inherent risks of nuclear power ever since the 11 March Tohoku offshore earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, triggered a devastating tsunami that effectively destroyed the complex. Ever since, specialists have wrangled about how damaging the consequences of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami actually were, not only for the facility but the rest of the world. The Fukushima Daichi complex was one of the 25 largest nuclear power stations in the world and the Fukushima I reactor was the first GE designed nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO.

in the aftermath of the disaster, both TEPCO and the Japanese government were at pains to minimize the disaster’s consequences, hardly surprising given the country’s densely populated regions. But now, an independent study has effectively demolished TEPCO and the Japanese government’s carefully constructed minimalist scenario. Mainichi news agency reported that France’s l’Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, or IRSN) has issued a recent report stating that the amount of radioactive cesium-137 that entered the Pacific after 11 March was probably nearly 30 times the amount stated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. in May.

According to IRSN, the amount of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 that flowed into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant between March 21 and mid-July reached an estimated 27.1 quadrillion becquerels. Why should this matter? Aren’t the Japanese authorities on top of the issue? Cesium-137 can cause burns, acute radiation sickness and even death at sufficient doses. It can contaminate food and water and, if ingested, gets distributed around the body, where it builds up in soft tissues, such as muscles. Over time, it is expelled from the body in urine. And where might tingested cesium-137 come from?