Talk:Triclocarban

Is it in any product taken orally?
I believe the question is significant, since the article tends to paint the bad side of the substance based on a study involving rats eating it. If it is never taken orally by humans, then that would affect the perception of that study's validity. Does it survive in some form in drinking water? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronar (talk • contribs) 16:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Triclosan
Are triclocarban and triclosan related to each other in any way (e.g. chemically, in mechanism of action, etc.)? 68.55.112.31 (talk) 20:48, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

See also section needed
there should be a see also section at the end of this article with links to other Wikipedia articles that share something in common with this one like the article about antibacterial soap there is a link for soap but that just talks about soap and not antibacterial soap. urName (talk) 23:05, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for expanding page
Dear Triclocarban editors,

I am a student at Boston College taking a class on environmental disrupters of disease. Part of our coursework entails expanding a wikipedia page. I am working with Brichr1520 and Row131er, who are fellow classmates of mine. Here is how we plan to expand the sections.


 * 1) Uses of Triclocarban
 * 2) Triclocarban is used as an antimicrobial agent in soaps, deodorants, skin creams, toothpaste and plastics.
 * 3) Chemical Structure and Properties
 * 4) Triclocarban is a white powder that is insoluble in water. While TCC has two chlorinated phenol rings, it is structurally similar to carbanilide compounds often found in pesticides and some drugs. Solid triclocarban is insoluble in water and incompatible with strong oxidizing reagents and strong bases.
 * 5) Mechanism of Action
 * 6) In bacteria – TCC is predominantly active against gram positive bacteria (bacteria with a thick peptidoglycan wall). The precise mechanism of action of TCC is unknown, but it is shown to be bacterostatic, which prevents bacterial proliferation.  Unlike other antibacterial compounds, TCC does not interfere with the membrane.  As a result, it is hypothesized that TCC’s molecular mechanism resembles that of triclosan.
 * 7) In humans – Carbanilides like TCC may sensitize the complex of receptor-associating proteins similar to cofactors or coactivators common in cells containing Estrogen Receptors and Androgen Receptors. Observations demonstrate that TCC activates nuclear xenobiotic receptors CAR and ERα both in vivo and in vitro and might have the potential to alter normal physiological homeostasis. Activation of these xenobiotic-sensing receptors amplifies gene expression profiles that might represent a mechanistic base for potential human health effects from exposure to TCC. However, further investigation is needed to determine whether TCC increases the activity of sex steroid hormones by binding to the receptors or to receptor coactivators.
 * 8) Synthesis of Triclocarban
 * 9) There are two commercial routes used for the production of TCC:
 * 10) 4-chlorophenyl isocyanate [CAS# 104-12-1] is reacted with 3,4-dichloroaniline [CAS# 95-76-1] to give TCC.
 * 11) 3,4-dichlorophenyl isocyanate [CAS# 102-36-3] is reacted with 4-chloroaniline [CAS# 106-47-8] to give TCC.
 * 12) The purity specification in the draft USP monograph for TCC is: not less than 97.0% w/w. The purity of commercial production is > 98% w/w.
 * 13) Environmental Concerns
 * 14) Waste water
 * 15) High concentrations of TCC may be found in waste water. It is among top 10 most commonly detected organic wastewater compounds in terms of frequency and concentration. TCC has been found in increasing concentrations over the past 5 years and is now more frequently detected than triclosan.
 * 16) Wildlife Toxicity
 * 17) Triclocarban has the potential to cause chronic effects based on hazard quotients greater then one. A hazard quotient is "the ratio of the exposure concentration that can give a preliminary assessment of potential adverse effects. Hazard quotients greater than one indicate potential adverse effects". Triclocarban's antibacterial components have been shown to affect certain aquatic wildlife such as invertebrates, amphibians, fish, and plants. Some of these effects include endocrine and behavioral disruption. Microbial species in soils containing TCC are not significantly affected.
 * 18) Bioaccumulation
 * 19) TCC is more likely to bioaccumulate than triclosan in aquatic organisms. TCC bioaccumulates in plants treated with water containing TCC, however, “On the basis of the present and other studies, we estimate that vegetable consumption represents less than 0.5% of the acceptable daily intake of TCS and TCC...The concentration of TCS and TCC in edible portions of plants represents a negligible exposure pathway to humans". TCC can also bioaccumulate in earthworms, who have the potential to move TCC up the food chain. Additionally, TCC has been found to rapidly bioaccumulate in aquatic algae and adult caged snails.
 * 20) Breakdown of product
 * 21) Health Concerns
 * 22) Personal Care
 * 23) Studies have investigated using a bar of soap with traces of TCC and then analyzing how much remains on the body or is washed away. Other topical treatments have also been suggested and/or examined to demonstrate that TCC does enter the organism.
 * 24) Endocrine Disorders
 * 25) Triclocarban has shown to induce weak responses mediated by aryl hydrocarbon, estrogen, and androgen receptors in vitro. This has yet to be confirmed in vivo. In vitro, the dihydrotestosterone-dependent activation of androgen receptor-responsive gene expression has been shown to be enhanced by TCC by up to 130%. TCC is also potent inhibitor of the enzyme soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) in vitro.
 * 26) Allergies
 * 27) Eye, lung, and skin irritation
 * 28) Effects of byproducts
 * 29) Spillage and environmental damage to ecosystems and organisms
 * 30) Recommended first aid and personal protection or prevention

We also plan to link this page to triclosan and give further explanation as to how the two compounds are related.

Bias
While there are clearly environmental concerns about triclocarban, this article focusses way too much on those concerns. There is an undue weight given to that aspect of the topic. The beneficial uses are minimized, at best. From the tone and content of the lead paragraph, through the unbalanced content, this article reads as if should really be titled "Environmental and safety concerns about triclocarban". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.115.169.20 (talk) 10:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your attention to our page! We are carefully considering your suggestion and are working on rewording parts of the article that sound biased while expanding upon sections about the chemical's structure/synthesis/mechanism, which we believe are objective topics. We have also been searching for academic sources and research articles that are in support of TCC's usage. So far, we have been unable to find much that suggests other perspectives on TCC. However, if you have any sources in mind that have different information about TCC's usage, we would appreciate your input and will surely look into their incorporation on this page. Row131er (talk) 01:53, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * We have reviewed the article in response to your helpful comment and because there seems to be no further conversation regarding the neutrality of this page, we are going to remove the bias banner from the article. Again, thank you so much for your advice! Row131er (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great job on the article so far guys. It is thorough and it touches upon many different aspects of tricclocarbans. I like the way you have organized the headings and the subheadings. They flow nicely together and transition smoothly to one another. Good job in balancing how much you spent in each subsection. The article as a whole gives a nice overview of triclocarbans. I know you guys were having some trouble finding any data about triclocarbans outside of the United States. Are they used at all? Maybe you can have a brief section that just mentions the legal status of triclocarbans outside of the US. You could even list some common products or companies that use them outside of the country. I don't know if any exist, but just a thought. I have a few suggestions and comments for some of the sections and I will list them below.

Introduction
Good way to introduce the chemical tricolcarban. Maybe you guys can outline a little more the structure of the article within the introduction? It does open up the subject of triclocarban well, but it does not provide a map of your article. Maybe you could consider expanding the introduction to show what major points you will be talking about throughout the body of the article. Also I would suggest linking the word antibacterial soap.

Uses
Good brief overview of the use of triclocarban. It is short, precise, and to the point. Is there any data about uses of triclocarban outside of the United States? Maybe in this section you can mention some of the companies that use triclocarbans in their products the most in their products? Are they universally used in almost all of the products mentioned or are they used with some companies but not with others? Are there some companies that have decided not to use triclocarbans at all? If so, what compound do they use instead? Also I would suggest linking antimicrobial and antifungal.

Chemical Structures and Properties
The box with all the chemical properties is very useful. However, maybe you may want to consider putting some of the information contained in the box in the paragraph as well. This section has a good flow and touches upon all the main points of triclocarban. Some links you might want to consider are chlorophenol, carbanillide, oxidizing reagents, and some of the chemicals that are involved in making triclocarbans.

Mechanisms of Action
Maybe you could mention in a phrase what triclosan does and why it is so similar to triclocarban? This section presents all the facts without being biased, great job. It also points out that further investigation is needed to highlight to the reader that the mechanisms are not fully understood yet. I also like how you addressed it both with bacteria and within humans. Some links to consider would be bacteria, cofactor, coactivator, and homeostasis.

Antibacterial Properties
This is a solid section as well. It is clear and to the point. Good description of resistance and resistance formation also.

Environmental Concerns
One sentence that I thought could use some revision is the sentence that starts "The antibacterial components of..." . I am not really sure what you are trying to say there; I think a word may be missing. Also, you may want to edit comma use in the last sentence of that paragraph. In the bioaccumulation paragraph, you may want to change is to are in the sentence "potential ecological risks associated with this method is...". A couple links to consider are neurological system and reproductive system.

Endocrine disorders
You may want to consider adding links to words such as aryl hydrocarbon, androgen receptor, estrogen receptor, estrogen, and testosterone.

Overall
Great job so far. It looks like a solid article. It covers many main topics that are related to triclocarban. The page is balanced nicely with positive and negative affects of triclocarban. The facts are presented very straightforward and without bias. I would just suggest looking at the few grammatical errors that I pointed out and look over some of the possible new wiki-links I pointed out. M1092 (talk) 00:46, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Changes to Article Made Based on Review
Dear M1092,

Thank you for your detailed review. Having an extra pair of eyes to review the grammar was especially useful. We have incorporated most of your wikilink suggestions. The only time we didn't wikilink something is if the wikipedia page didn't exist. In our introduction, we provided a brief roadmap. We added another paragraph to theUses section that includes companies who both use and avoid TCC in their products. For the companies who have removed the product, we haven't found any data suggesting they've replaced it with another chemical. We followed your suggestions in the Chemical Synthesis section by adding some of the box info into our paragraph. We chose not to add a quick summary of triclosan's mechanism of action because we wikilink triclosan. Adding summary seemed redundant. We incorporated the rest of your suggestions, and fixed the grammar errors you found. We really appreciate you taking the time to review our article, please feel free to post if you have any other suggestions.

Best,

EDDendocrinelover1 (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi everyone! This is my peer review of your Triclocarban article. Obviously it is very fleshed out and flows very nicely, so I'll be quickly going through all of the updated changes.

Introduction
This is the only section that I feel wasn't fleshed out a bit. I would have included a bit more on policy in the introduction since most people use it to quickly scope out the article.

Uses
I really appreciated how you took the time to research the companies that used triclocarban. My only input would be just to include why it is used in brake fluids and possibly companies that use it as well.

Chemical Structure and Properties
It was good to see the synthesis section, as well as the purity specification. I also liked that you mentioned and linked the POPs link.

Mechanism of action
Maybe expand on the significance of not interfering with the membrane? Otherwise I liked how you explained everything else, and provided links for people to research further.

Antibacterial properties
This section I thought was perfect. My favorite additions were mentioning and explaining tetQ as well as explaining co-selection.

Breakdown of Product
Only comment would be to maybe link Biosolids. There also maybe was a small typo, " is s 127,000" not sure if the second S is supposed to be there.

Environmental Concerns
Only comment would be to maybe describe the locations where high concentrations in waste water are most commonly found?

Health Concerns
Maybe just expand on the sensitization to aeroallergens and food part. Maybe the mechanism/how it does this?

Policy
Expanding on what the regulatory control entails, maybe the specifics of the policy?

Current and Future Research
Which non-target species? I know you mentioned species earlier in the article, but it may be helpful to just mention again.

General Comments
This was very well done and extremely informative to a broad spectrum of readers. I think Wikipedia readers would get a lot out of it!

Best, HallCU (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Abecks1717 Peer Review
Hey Guys,

Really great article, here are somethings that I thought about while I was going over it.

Uses: This section seems a bit short, but if there really is nothing more on this point, I think it’s all right. As is, it’s short, sweet, and to the point.

Chemical Structure and Properties: In this section, I feel like it may be good to expand upon what exactly this chemical structure means. For example, what exactly does it mean to be incompatible with strong oxidizers and strong bases? Does this make it dangerous? Beneficial? How does its chemical properties relate to how it acts as a chemical? These questions are just a few examples of things that I think could benefit this sections as a whole.

Mechanism of Action: This is one of the sections that I feel like could use the most improvement. While overall, the information and links in this section are very good, I feel like both parts (in bacteria and in humans) could use improvement. In the bacteria section, it may be beneficial to explain what the mechanism of triclosan is like, rather than just linking the other wiki page. In the human section, I feel like the explanation is way too complex for the average reader. While I understand it fine, I think that the average Wikipedia reader who is just looking for information on the topic would not be able to follow this section. The links in this section are great, but it just needs to be explained in plain English a bit better (however, while it is tricky, don’t over simplify because I really do like the information as a whole).

Antibacterial Properties: The main part of this section that I feel like could be improved is the part that talks about resistance. Looking at the article in this section, it contains a ton of good information that would be really great to illustrate on the page. However, once again, it would probably be best if it was explained in a little less scientific language, just so the average reader could understand. Also, as is, I don’t think the explanation of this experiment is as expansive as it could be. This looks to me like a great experiment that talks about the resistance gene, and it could bring a lot of great information to the table.

Environmental Concerns: Really like this section as a whole. It brings a lot of good information to the page and the links also are extremely relevant to what is being discussed in the section. The one thing that could possible be changed would be the addition of how triclocarban is actually introduced to the environment. Is it just from wastewater or is it through other mechanisms? Otherwise, the other parts relating to triclocarban in the environment are very well done.

Breakdown of Product: This section is what I was actually looking for in the environmental concern section. While this information is really good (great actually), I just feel like it should be placed in a different section on the page, possible before you talk about environmental effects.

Health Concerns: I feel like this section could use some improvement and expansion, specifically what effects and consequences it has on humans. This section could definitely be expanded upon, and could maybe benefit from a few more links.

Safety: This section is great, and I like the information. However, the last sentence about its toxicity seems a bit out of place. Why not put this in the health concern section? Also, if triclocarban is not that dangerous on skin, what is the main way it enters the body? Ingestion?

Policy and Current and Future Research: These sections are great with how much information is available at this time. I wouldn’t change anything with either of these sections.

Overall Thoughts: Overall, I feel like this is an extremely well written, comprehensive look at triclobarban. When reading it, I get a better understanding of all the aspects that come along with this compound and leave the page feeling much more informed. I also think that the layout and organization was nice because I never had to read through too much bulk text to find what I needed. I think that some of the general improvements that would need to be made include: at times things can be explained in much plainer English, it would be best to make it more understandable to the average wiki reader. Also, one thing that I was generally questioning when I was done reading was “where is the greater risk from this compound coming from? Using it in personal products or through the byproducts of making it?” Just maybe something to keep in mind when doing the revisions, it was just one thought that I had. Otherwise, I really did like this article so keep up the good work!

Abecks1717 (talk) 05:27, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Review
Thank you for your helpful comments! We've gone through your review point by point:

Uses: This section is short but, we agree with you, but we think it captures the major points of triclocarban usage as well as the prevalence of its usage. Due to the recent changes surrounding how triclocarban is being treated by the FDA and industry, we have updated this section to include these new events.

Chemical Structure and Properties: In response to your comment, we have clarified that "incompatible" means leading to safety concerns and we have included details about how the chlorination of triclocarban contributes to its chemical/biological properties.

Antibacterial Properties: We added a paragraph to the beginning of the resistance section that details how antibacterial resistance works in clearer terms. We also have a wikilink to antibacterial resistance if readers would like more information about it. In terms of the tetQ gene experiment, we revisited the article and tried to make this section more clear on how this experiment directly shows that TCC leads to resistance. This paragraph also gives more background information on how resistance in general and for TCC works mechanistically. While it isn't completely in layman's terms, we believe that the depth of the research in this section requires some scientific terminology that those looking for the deeper science will appreciate. Nevertheless, we tried to also make it plain enough that an average reader would be able to benefit from the section and know of where to look for more information.

Environmental Concerns/Breakdown of product: We followed your advice and moved the breakdown section above the environmental section and addressed both your concerns in doing so.

Health concerns/Safety: We've added specifically the health impact of amplified sex hormone levels (i.e. breast/prostate cancer) and wikilinked them. We've also moved the toxicity sentence from "safety" to "health concerns" under endocrine disruption.

Overall, thank you very much for your comments. We will add more information as the data becomes more available. If you have any other suggestions, please let us know.

Best,

EDDendocrinelover1 (talk) 20:23, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Row131er (talk) 20:26, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Another Minor Suggestion
Consider linking glucuronidation to its wiki page in "Health Concerns" section. There is some talk of forcing manufacturers provide more data demonstrating whether or not use of triclocarbon is safe. This article on the FDA site may be useful. Mbeez (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit made 2/7/15
Just added a couple sentences about the elucidated mechanism under "Bacteria" section of "Mechanism" - got from article on triclosan! (I think I accidentally said it was a minor edit, but didn't mean to)... Cool page! Mantareina (talk) 00:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)Mantareina

Removed a link
I removed a link saying that triclocarban was an ingredient in brake fluid and other things. While it may well be so, the link given didnt seem to supply evidence for that. In fact hitting resubmit just turned up various soaps and detergents. Please let me know if I made a mistake. — Soap — 17:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)