Study Links Personal Care Products To Environmental Pollution And Human Health Concerns

Anti- bacterial soaps and cleansing agents today hold an essential position for almost all of us in maintaining a germ-free environment in our homes. Unfortunately, the active ingredients in these cleansing agents have come under the scutiny of the EPA and FDA due to both, environment and health concerns.

Two closely related antimicrobials, Triclosan and Triclocarban seem to be the crux of this problem. Triclosan (TCS) has structural resemblance to Dioxin which holds importance as an environmental pollutant and is likely to cause cancerdefine.

Triclocarban (TCC) on the other hand is basically a substance with anti-bacterial properties used in disinfectants, soaps and other household products. Triclocarban has accelerated in 2004, from an unknown and presumably harmless consumer product additive to one of today's top ten pharmaceuticals and personal care products, most frequently found in the environment and drinking water resources in U.S

Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University in a feat of environmental detective work has traced back the active ingredients in soaps, used as long ago as 1960 to their current location, the shallow sediments of New York City's Jamaica Bay and Chesapeake Bay, U.S's largest estuary.

Studies show that antimicrobial ingredients used half a century ago, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the brackish waters, into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their treated domestic waste water. This extreme environmental persistence is a concern in itself and recent studies that show Triclosan and Triclocarban to be endocrine disruptors in mammalian cell cultures and in animal models, simply amplify the potent situation.

The team research was aided by another type of contamination: the radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing conducted in the second half of the last century. Using the known deposition history and half lives of the two radioactive isotopes, cesium-137 and beryllium-7, the team was able to assign the approximate time at which the sediments observed to contain antimicrobial residues, had been deposited in the two East Coast locations.

Analysis show vertical cores of sediments, deposited over time in the two sampling locations with TCS to be present in a lesser extent in comparison to TCC which was present at parts per million levels, unhealthy for aquatic life, especially the bottom feeders that are important to commercial fishing industries like shellfish and crabs.

In the Chesapeake Bay samples, the group noticed a significant drop in TCC levels that corresponded to a technology upgrade in the nearby wastewater treatment plant back in 1978. However, earlier work by the team had shown that enhanced removal of TCC and TCS in wastewater treatment plants leads to accumulation of the problematic antimicrobial substances in municipal sludge that often is applied on agricultural land for disposal.

It is concluded that little is actually degraded during wastewater treatment and more information is needed regarding the long term consequences these chemicals may have on environmentally beneficial micro-organisms.

Luckily along the way of studying the deposition history of antimicrobials in sediments, the team discovered a new pathway for the breakdown of antimicrobial additives of consumer products.

Evidence was found deep in the muddy sediments of the Chesapeake Bay. Anaerobic microorganisms that assist in the decontamination of their habitat pull off chlorine atoms one by one, from the carbon backbone of Triclocarban, presumably while obtaining energy for their metabolism in the process.

Unfortunately the process does not occur in all locations and furthermore it is quite slow. Continued use of antimicrobial compounds at the current rate, could outpace nature’s ability to decompose these problematic compounds.

While combining bioenergy production and pollutant destruction has its own appeal, a simpler solution of combating the pollution has been discovered. This is, limiting the use of antimicrobial personal care products, only to situations where they improve public health and save lives.

The irony is that these compounds have no measurable benefit over the use of regular soap and water for hand washing as the contact time simply is too short. Unfortunately this cannot be said for the bottom-dwelling organisms in the sampling locations on the East Coast. “Here, the affected organisms are experiencing multi-generational, life-time exposures to our chemical follies.

The research on persistent antimicrobials continues, with studies on their body burden and associated health effects in susceptible populations including mothers and their babies.