Aluminum toxicity, a characteristically manmade problem, is now impossible to avoid, and has become a postmodern rite of passage. Our environment has become so polluted with the stuff, that even our crop plants are being threatened, with biotechnology firms now scrambling to genetically engineer aluminum-tolerance into them as a possible, though still desperate solution.

Not only are we being exposed, daily, through increasingly polluted water, soil and air, but many of our regulatory agencies consider it perfectly safe to intentionally consume or inject the stuff directly into our bodies.