"Don K" wrote in
:

Most mining involves dealing with nasty by-products.

A lot of gold is also obtained by refining ore thru all sorts of
chemical processes. Yet we don't refer to it as man-made gold. There's
no alchemy involved. It's just recovering the gold that is locked up
in other compounds.

The difference is refined or man-made gold is more or less
indistinguishible from naturally occuring pure gold (and nobody's saying
gold isn't found in ore, although I question, historically, how gold has
been recovered by refining from ores vs. how much was just laying around,
more or less pure), whereas you just don't find sheets of aluminum or
aluminum oxide lying around. Well, you might if you live in a junky
neighborhood, but you still know it's in an unnatural state.

Gold can be toxic to the liver and kidneys. Perhaps a prudent person
should stop wearing man-made gold while avoiding aluminum.

I can see how that could be a problem if you go around looking like Mr. T
or have some Trumpesqe fascination with gilding things like spoons, forks
and cups. But unless you're eating gold flakes for breakfast, it's still
not quite the same.

Drinking too much water *can* be toxic, but nobody's saying stop drinking
water.

- Salty