I did several semesters' worth of biology fieldwork in college that involved handling many of these guys, under the guidance of a professor who was obsessed with them. Their toxicity was discussed more as a point of interest rather than an immediate danger. We always wore gloves when handling them, but the rationale was more for the newts' protection rather than our own. I never heard of there being a newt poisoning incident during the past decades of this professor overseeing similar fieldwork. Of course, eating them was out of the question.