you point of it all being bad is taken. I remember seeing a pic once of late 19th/early 20th century knife grinders, they lay prone with their faces inches from 4' dia wheel. they had very short life spans, succumbing to a variety of lung diseases, so you're point of it all being bad is taken. some googling surprisingly shows we've not learned our lessons!
http://www.rps.org/images/portfolios...fe_grinder.jpg
you're the voice of experience, I'm the weekend end warrior so mostly I defer to you guys....on the general grinding I agree, but my concerns are specific to carbide, not grinding in general. I've got a fair bit of grinding equipment and other than a paper mask for surface grinding, don't worry that much about it - its infrequent and for short durations. but the carbide grinding is another matter, the parts per million needed to be dangerous for the cobalt binders are very low...enough that its a different risk than grinding steels. I also use carbides for CI and use some diamond hones and a bit of water (nothing airborne that way) to touch them up