The 'Litter Box Talks' Continue!

I went to the store to buy a new brand of kitty litter for my cats thinking that the Purina Kitty Scoop they've been using might be the cause of their continued paw chewing.
I decided to buy the Maxx Cat Litter because it is also available in scoopable form and as someone suggested on PT the other day, it is 99% dust free. We just changed the boxes over this morning so we'll see how it goes.
I just called the 1-800 number on the packaging of the empty container of Purina Kitty Scoop to ask them if anything had changed with the kitty litter since my cats have been using it for years and perhaps something was now different but they said nothing has changed.
I looked around on the internet about kitty litter and irritants and found this article. It's really interesting and makes me seriously think about going back to old fashioned non scoopable litter or the newspaper pellets. I don't want to use pine because it can be irritating to cats with asthma and I have 2 cats who suffer with this and I don't want to use wheat litter because my cat George is allergic to wheat.
The ingredient in scoopable litter that makes it 'clump' is Sodium Bentonite and it really doesn't sound all that healthy for people and animals to breathe in.
I'm frustrated because clumping litter is so much easier to deal with, especially in a multiple cat household but I really wonder what effects years and years of breathing this in and licking it off their paws might have on them and on us when we clean the boxes daily (twice daily at our house :( ).
The article is below:
p.s. My husband said the funniest thing this morning and since I'm on the subject of litter boxes, I thought I'd add it to this thread. Our largest cat Paddy used the box and did his business and my husband walked by and said 'Oh my God, he's taken another one of his Anaconda poops! Perhaps a submission to the Furminology Dictionary for extra large poops?!? :)

Kitty Litter Article