I have a question about metal dust?

Well, I removed one of those hershey shaped ink tags off of a pair of jeans I bought because I didn't want to drive 2 hours away to JCPenneys. But anywho, when I was cutting the very tip of the tag off, so I can get to the spring, there was a metal thing at the tip that I inevidently had to keep scraping at till I had the plastic cut enough to pull out that metal part. I could see metal sparkles on my fingers and it had to have gotton on my jeans as well. I also knicked my finger during this which bled a little. The reason I'm asking this is because I was told you're not suppose to breathe in metal dust because it can cause cancer or other diseases and that if its a certain type of metal it can be incredibly dangerous. It wasn't a lot of particles but I'm concerned. What if it got on my mouth or in my eyes?? Haha, I'm incredibly paranoid, does anybody know about this kind of stuff?