A long time ago, I shared a lab with some microbiologists in high school. I was doing a bromine synthesis on ice to prevent fume generation. They had upped the temperature in the lab since they were incubating something. Needless to say, when I dismantled my apparatus, I was hit in the face with a full blast of bromine gas. Developed a bromine allergy that day. My university pool was cleaned with bromine and every time I went to swim, I felt sick the next day. It's been 20+ years and I still have the allergy to bromine.
Hate having to admit my mistake, but learn from my mistake and follow Orvi's advice and stay safe.
Any synthesis could be done safely, so it could be done with bromine as well. I see very clean looking hood on the pictures. If it work as supposed, and does not leak the gas back to the room, you should be pretty much OK. When whole apparatus is dismantled inside the hood and immersed into bucket of sulfite solution for a night, it will by fine. But the risk is still there, flask could crack, or water from broken condenser could leak on the outside, creating heat shock to glass, rupturing apparatus... These could be mitigated to minimum probability, but you cannot eradicate the risks completely. Then it is up to you, if you consider the risks and despite them like to proceed with synthesis.
I classify the dangerous chemicals to two categories (for myself):
1. toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic no matter what combination of these - but it can be neutralized/reacted to form relatively harmless compounds
easily. So as you follow all the safety basics and dont expose yourself by mistake, accident or ignorance, you can fully destroy any traces of it and you and your workplace should be fine. This is the bromine case - nasty stuff, but bisulfite or thiosulfate tame it nicely and completely.
2. toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic no matter what combination of these - but
it can´t be neutralized/reacted easily that way it produce harmless compounds. To this category falls most of the nasty organic compounds like cyanates, chlorinated biphenyls stuff, organomercury compounds, stannanes, some organic hydrazines of poor water solubility... etc. And also some inorganic compounds - like all mercury, beryllium and thallium stuff. Decontamination is tedious, slow and often cannot be complete. Many times the waste created is order of magnitude less hazardous, but it still is - like precipitating mercury as sulfide with Na2S. You create relatively harmless precipitate of HgS, but it is still the mercury compound, hard to dispose properly and cost effectively.
Personally i opt not to work with compounds of the latter category in any manner.
But it fascinate me everytime I see it, just looks very nice.
