I am an allergy and asthma sufferer who has been woodworking for about a year now. Poor choice of hobbies I know, but now that I am hooked there is little that I can do about it.
I have spent considerable effort putting in dust collection and I usually wear a high-quality dust mask when doing any work that kicks up sawdust. That said, inevitably some amount of material ends up getting through and causing some irritation for me. I find that red oak is somewhat worse than mahogany or cherry, but nothing I have experienced to date is as bad as MDF. I plan to eventually build some wine racking and I understand that redwood generates even worse (i.e., more toxic) forms of dust than MDF, so I will probably go with mahogany.
Here's the general question: what are your experiences with different wood species and the amount of irritation their dust cause? Is their a web site that has this sort of information? (I seem to recall a few months ago that someone was having problems with an exotic wood and was directed to a website to check on its degree of toxicity.)
Lars