Hehe... that story makes me giggle. Your SOG is not somebody you would expect to over react to a chemical process he probably knew a little bit about.
The general public are alarmist about lots of things. Asbestos is one that jumps to mind. I was riding around an old asbestos mine last weekend.
Some of my friends were sure I was going to have lung cancer by the end of the week.
This is one of the photos I took. Everything that is white is asbestos !
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2854582200048941318DwsnUn
Beryllium in old radio electronics is more of a concern to me.
Quite often scrap metal dealers come and collect the old gear with no thought for Beryllium Oxide. We tell them if we suspect PCB's, they have no idea what Beryllium is. Even when I showed one of them once, he didn't care. "Ah, my office has asbestos walls buddy, this stuff ain't going to hurt nobody !"
Mercury is another. Every couple of years the subject of mercury fillings etc comes up.
Like asbestos, once in place, it's just safer to leave the fillings in rather than remove them.
Think of all those fluro lights getting busted up in landfill !
Radiation - Damn doesn't that make people go crazy !
Psychotic Kindy mums complaining about mobile phone towers next door to their kid's school. Yet have the same kid talk to daddy on the mobile phone.
Inverse square law just does not exist in their universe. "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge"
And if it isn't non-ionising radiation, ionising radiation tips people over the edge.
I collect radioactive minerals. I sometimes go to lapidary shows where I might pick up a good specimen I don't have.
I carry a gieger counter around with me, and it freaks people out. Especially those crystal healing people.
PCBs. Most people will not have to worry about them. Quite often we will see electrolyte which has leaked out of a capacitor (electrolytic) or maybe out of a forgotten battery. Generally there isn't anything to worry about and simple common sense is all you need. Treat the leak as if it were toxic or caustic.
No need to call the hazmat for a dead capacitor, clean up the PCB (circuit board) with metho and an old toothbrush etc.
PCB's in old electronics are also not too much of a problem. I've come across a lot of old capacitors and transformers which used them. Stuff from the 1940's and 50's. Most of them had never leaked when we removed them from service. One or two had leaked, but even then these were very minor and today's electrolytics make a proportionally much bigger mess.
When we did find a leak, we just avoided touching any of the material and got it into the waste removal bin with little fuss.
I would just avoid contact with anything you're not sure about. Simple policy.