Hacker News Reader

"The bottom line is that arsenic is a heavy metal, like lead, and all heavy metals are dangerous and carcinogenic."

Gold, iron, tin are are all "heavy metals" and are certainly not carcinogenic or dangerous.

I remember from a video of Cody's Lab that metallic gold is safe, but oxidized gold is toxic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Toxicity But it's very difficult to oxidize gold, and even gold the salts try to go back to the metallic form, so most of the times it's not a problem.

Those are not considered heavy metals in toxicology.

I guess Iron Maiden should rebrand as Cadmium Maiden

That's their point. Heavy as in "has some gravity to it" is an unambiguous term in all other sciences except toxicology.

Go ask an astronomer what a “metal” is :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com