We have already talked about it in the past, but we can do it again, no problem.
Everything written in the article is absolutely right and no dispute about it. But in our particular case we don’t use Beryllium as a metal, it is Beryllium Bronze (also known as Beryllium Cupper) and it contains about 1.8 % Beryllium. Another thing is that is really dangerous to breath powder of BRB, but if you don’t grinding the sleeve there is no powder. Piston is running on Chrome plating and doesn’t create any powder and there is no risk to breath it (no powder-nothing to breath in). Just for instance, some strings for Guitars are made with usage of BRB, springs on wristwatches are made out of BRB etc.
On our facility in Russia we use state of the art cleaning equipment during the manufacturing process.
Also if you look the tables of dangerous materials you will find there a lot of Chemical element, which use in our hobby (NiCd batteries, Chrome plating, some of the soldering alloys contains Lead, nitromethane, etc). But as long as we don’t chew or breathe those elements should be no problem.
BTW, Tower Hobbies selling propellers for boats made out of BRB and they have been use in boating for years. Those not even coated, and they are blank, so modeler must to cut it to specs-that process is very dangerous and as Motorman mentioned in the past they use all precaution and safety equipment and no problem at all.