you got my sincere sympathies Geof.
My own grandfather died of pneumocossis (sp?) through working down the mines in Scotland. I was at the bedside when he finaly went, I was only a kid, and it was neither dignified nor quick. The nurses/ doctors had him on a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). He was a fighter and it took a long, long time. The images in my head are still with me forty years later.
One good thing came of it though, I suppose. I am constantly curious about stuff that I'm machining. I will
not machine Beryllium, Zinc Selenide, Zinc Sulphide, anything that contains Thorium (232), Gallium Arsenide, Aresnic TriSulphide, Chalcoginide, and many other things that folk will just go ahead and do because "Joe Blogs did it, it must be ok".
Likewise, we used to wash our hands in Napthalene to get rid of the pitch from the lens polishing, when they found out this was dodgy, it was Tolulene, then that was thought to be a little suspect so they changed it to TriChloroEthane, then TriChloroEthene, then TriChloroTriFluroEthane. In know you know, but for others... that's 2 carbon atoms, joined with a single covalent bond: The first Carbon atom has three Chlorine atoms on it, the second three Fluorine (nice for the atmosphere and your skin/ lungs). We used a LOT, ie 50 gallons a day. There was an artificial cloud above our lab as it was pumped out in vapour.
I firmly beleive that if you do not research the stuff you're working with then no- one else will.
I have honestly seen folk angle grinding lenses coated with Thorium (half of which is Th232), an alpha emitter, which is more tightly controlled from a dust point of view by Governmental agencies than Uranium or Plutonium.
Because, simply, they didn't know (I put a stop to it).
I've seen men with their arms up to their elbows in Zinc Selenide dust
eating their sandwiches
Because they didn't know.
Designers don't really have the intelligence to think things through. I've personally had in my hands a lens system that was giving off very significant amounts of Gamma. Looking into it, I found that the Thorium on the coating was giving off Alpha and Beta that reacted with the lead in the glass causing what the Germans call Brehmstallung radiation (sp?)- as the alphas/ betas get slowed down by the dense medium it spits out fast neutrons. Not good if you're looking through it for a while cos your eyes are close to your brain.
[Edit] Wrong! It's been kindly pointed out to me that it spits out across the whole electromagnetic spectrum from visible right up- didn't know that! thanks Geof! Oh and it is "breaking" radiation (as in slowing down), not braking. The correct spelling is: bremsstrahlung, I am dumb 
sorry for the confusion![/Edit].
Sorry to rant on, but I firmly beleive that no- one will look after your own safety more than yourself... or am I being paranoid?