So how does that account for the supposed idea that people who live in Denver, who get 2x to 4x the average radiation than the normal population have far lower rates of cancer than average.
For instance, airline pilots are exposed to more radiation than the average worker. But they also have a low percentage of smokers, and in order to keep their medical license they need to be in fairly good health. So, apart from skin cancer, they have lower than average rates of cancer compared to the general population:
https://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/magazine/2001/March2001_He...
Obviously cancer has many causes, but to the extent Denver shares those causes with Oregon, they should wash out and reveal Denver's radiation-linked cancer (which, after all, you're basically arguing exists).
Or it might be that the baseline background radiation is so small that 2x that baseline is still statistically insignificant compared to other factors.
That said, I'm not alarmed by the radiation in Japan, I'm more alarmed about the situation of the Fukushima plant and the problems they face with potential leakage into the groundwater (among other things).
http://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/ratetrendbycan...
Beyond that, it's like the parent said: you have to take into account the type of radiation, sources, method of exposure, etc.
"The absorbed radiation dose depends on the type and energy of the emitted particles, as well as on the location of the source in the body (external, inhaled, ingested, etc.), and the biological half-life of the compounds ingested."
There are probably other controlling factors that come into play in Denver, so yes, that is still possible (if it is so, I'll add the wikipedia-style "citation needed").
Please don't. The "banana equivalent dose" people make the wrong assumption that the excess potassium brought in the organism by eating a banana stays there for 50 years. Because of the way potassium homeostasis works, the excess is eliminated within a few hours, when urinating.
So let's reduce the average exposure time from 50 years to 12 hours and the radiation exposure from 0.078 microsievert to 0.00000213 microsievert. We're losing respect for some cool comic strip in the process[1], but the reality is worth it.
As you probably have noted, the BED has other problems as well, namely the source and kind of radiation is not taken into account - it's actually discussed in the wikipedia article. So reading the article is an enlightening skim on the surface if that's all you need ATM. There's no use in calculating your radiation exposure in BEDs - we both agree on that account.
Unless your actual argument here is that radiation prevents cancer - and I'd say that you have a higher burden of proof for that.
Statements such as yours are exactly in vein with the the article and is exactly the type of BS pseudoscience used so commonly in the defense of nuclear power.