I am curious how many people out there know of someone who has lung cancer
or some other serious ailment which is suspected to be attributable to his
exposure to wood dust. I suspect the risk level is fairly low.

Don't get me wrong, the stuff is messy, gets into everything, is an overall
pain and can make good finishing work hard to do. I have no desire to breath
quantities of it in (although I do enjoy the smell in the air after cutting
hickory and walnut). Yet, my grandfather ran a woodshop for 30 years (age
40 - 70). It would be generous to call the dust collection he used as
primitive. Generally he went without and just swept up. At this point he is
80 and has no health problems attributable to it (I know, 1 data point
doesn't make any headway toward being a credible study).

Now the craft is mine, and I do keep things orderly. With a well engineered
dust collection system and air purification we can keep things fairly tidy,
but not perfect. There is obviously residual exposure beyond what is
captured - especially around a handheld router, etc.

Any thoughts on the level of risk?