"toxic worker" is a pretty textbook definition now: -horrible team player -plays for the spotlight, claims credit in the spotlight, does little work privately -if in mgmt, verbally/mentally terrorizes subordinates -etc etc
People took the notion of a fluid language and took it too far, by letting words mean whatever they think they mean and refusing to get corrected and/or abide by a standard definition.
Which is the whole point of these sorts of studies: education
In areas where "toxic working" is ID'd as the risk it really is (i.e. this study is old, old news), it's never a term thrown around as a political term like you're concerned about. It's a specifically cancerous, horrible way of working that's seriously easy to identify. It's like trying to play politics with the term "water leaking" to describe anything other than water leaking.