One can't help but notice from his shirt and his hair that the picture was taken in the 1970s. Lots of awful practices still existed then; who's to say this isn't a picture of that?
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/multimedia/photoessays/train...
At all stages the material can be handled with no more protection than gloves. It is roughly as dangerous as handling lead fishing weights until the fuel actually attains criticality.