Health Ministry Takes Action: Investigating the Strange Disease Outbreak In a concerning turn of events, over 200 people in the Egyptian village of Al-aleikat, located in the Qena governorate, have been infected with a mysterious disease, causing alarm among the residents.
Does aluminum production produce a lot of heavy metal byproducts? It’s a lithophile (it tends to congregate with crust-y rocks and oxygen rather than stuff that ends up in the core or in sulphide deposits) so I’m guessing not.
Not sure in what quantities but a few rare earths do appear in bauxite deposits.
Looking at a table of Goldshmidt classifications, chromium and vanadium should too. None of those are usually called heavy metals, though.