What are you talking about?
The radiation exposure on the surface of Mars is much harsher than that
on the surface of the Earth for two reasons: Mars lacks a global magnetic
field to deflect energetic charged particles (1), and the Martian atmos-
phere is much thinner (<1%) than that of Earth, providing little shielding
against the high energy particles that are incident at the top of its atmos-
phere. This environmental factor, for which there is no analog on Earth,
poses a challenge for future human exploration of Mars
[...]
Combining our measurements with those obtained during the cruise
phase (22), we estimate a Total Mission dose equivalent of ~1.01 Sv for
a round trip Mars surface mission with 180 days (each way) cruise, and
500 days on the Martian surface for this current solar cycle (Table 2).
https://www.science.org/cms/asset/b9057f23-375b-447a-ba62-65a4e7f691a4/pap.pdf
This is based on data collected by Curiosity. This value was confirmed by a more recently published study:
the accumulated dose equivalent is about 1.02 ± 0.13 Sv. This is quite consistent with the value obtained by Hassler et al. (2014), who estimated a value about 1.01 Sv based on RAD’s cruise measurement and the first 300 sols of surface measurement under similar solar modulation conditions.
1 Sievert (Sv) is 20x the DOE annual radiation limit for workers (5 rem), and 10x the average dose received on an ISS mission (10 rem). It's also about 20% of a lethal dose (~500 rem).
https://www.scribd.com/document/100083925/DOE-Ionizing-Radiation-Dose-Ranges-Rem-Chart
This information was super easy to find. It's not a myth, and the health risks are currently considered too high for human exploration of Mars.