How sound is the model used to establish safe radiation levels?

ALRA and LNT are not helping people, and science is hard, so why not do something simple? Just use Denver. Denver has more background radiation then average, but Denverites are also healthier then average.

If the background in your power plant is less then the background in Denver, your good. Right now power plants are expensively regulated down to 1/10 or 1/100 of a Denver.

Summary: It sounds like the model is utter crap, based on loads of early-atomic-age hand-waves and politics, and extremely little data.

But between research expenses, and the politics and ideology around "nuclear" - prospects for getting a better model don't sound good.

Hmm...with all the current excitement about sending people to the moon & to Mars, maybe we could hide some decent research behind a bunch of "astronauts", "out in space", and "natural cosmic rays" smokescreens?