Talk:Antimicrobial

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Marvel Hoskins.

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Untitled

The current page has been written from the perspective of alternative medicines and does not reflect much understanding of the term antimicrobial. For example, the common use of the term antibiotic to describe any antimicrobial, semi-synthetic or synthetic antimicrobial does not properly differentiate them, which is what an encyclopedia is supposed to do. Yet the author seems satisfied to not differentiate the various antimicrobials into antiviral, antihelminthic and so on, and just lump any antimicrobial into the group antibiotic. The remainder of his/her discussion is alarmism and folkloric claptrap. Resistance to antimicrobials is certainly an issue which most people are aware of, but there is no discussion of the mechanisms, progression of the problem or possible routes of avoidance. Traditional medicine may occasionally use extracts with antimicrobial properties, but traditional healers rely on traditions that were in existence in times before the discovery of microbes, before the refutation of the theory of spontaneous generation and before the discovery of antibiotics or the description of their mechanisms of action. In other words, traditional medicine has no scientific basis and should not be relied upon as a source of information about antimicrobials, which spring from the application of scientific method. At best, it is a footnote about the origin of quinine and artemisinin and their chemical derivatives in the treatment and prevention of malaria.

--Eukaryotica 15:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be removed. It is so distorted that the bad outweighs what little correct information is present.

Attempted fixing

I believe I improved the article quite a bit. I removed the large section on nitrofuranes (which was incoherent, lacked formatting and belongs to the appropriate Wiki page, not here) and most of the information about antimicrobial elements/ions (which also belongs elsewhere and needs editing and several citations to be encyclopedic). I created sections for antifungals, antivirals and antiparasitics, which were previously missing. I fetched the content from the respective pages and edited it a bit. It's far from perfect, but better than having a page about antimicrobials without any information about these classes of drugs. I removed the POV tag, as I believe the article is now fairly neutral. At least it isn't so heavily focused on alternative medicine any more.

I fixed a lot of other things too, hopefully didn't make too many errors (I'm well versed in pharmacology and know my way around microbiology as well, but there were some things I didn't completely understand (eg. the nitroglycerine thing). DiamonDie 13:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Penicilin was disvoverd 1941... ROFL tell that to Fleming...

Sloppy and unbalanced

This article is full of outright inaccuracies such as the very first line, "Antimicrobial is a property typically associated with substances of a liquid composition." Where did someone get the idea that antimicrobial substances were often thought of as liquids? Never mind that pills and UV light can be antimicrobial. Also, its not really balanced. The section labelled "Classes" is actually about antibiotics. Granted, antibiotics are antimicrobial substances. However, nothing is mentioned of physical agents such as moist heat, pasteurization, etc or chemical disinfectants like bleach and phenol. Finally, many of the subtopics that are currently listed should just be a link to their individual page. Example is "Antiparasitics," which should just link to that section.

I would like to suggest the outline below for this topic.

Terminology
Microbial Characteristics in Antimicrobial Control
Rate of Microbial Death
Actions of Microbial Control Agents
1. Alteration of Membrane Permeability
2. Damage to Proteins and Nucleic Acids
Physical Methods of Microbial Control
1. Heat
  1. Dry Heat
  2. Moist Heat
  3. Pasteurization
2. Filtration
3. Low Temperature
4. High Pressure
5. Desiccation
6. Osmotic Pressure
7. Radiation
  1. Ionizing Radiation
  2. Nonionizing Radiation
  3. Microwaves
Chemical Methods of Microbial Control
1. Evaluation of a Disinfectant
2. Types of Disinfectants
  1. Phenols
  2. Bisphenols
  3. Biguanides
  4. Halogens
  5. Alcohols
  6. Heavy Metals
  7. Surfactants
  8. Acid-Anionic Sanitizer
  9. Quats
  10. Chemical Food Preservatives
  11. Antibiotics
  12. Aldehydes
  13. Chemical Sterilization
  14. Plasmas
  15. Supercritical Fluids
  16. Peroxygens and Other Forms of Oxygen
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sannwn (talk • contribs) 18:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Symbol

I've just removed File:AntiMicrobial Symbol.png from this page for a second time. The rationale for the addition was that it is "used in plastics products containing antimicrobial material to identify as such", but I can't find references to it online, and it seems likely that even if it's mandated, the use would be regional and not universal. Given the above, I feel that the symbol should not be in this article. Barring consensus otherwise or reliable sources showing significant prevalence, it probably shouldn't be added again. wctaiwan (talk) 19:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agree BakerStMD T|C 18:53, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So why not just move it to a section further down in the article? Chaput87 (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2014 (UTC)Chaput87[reply]

Because there's no evidence that the symbol is significant or prevalent enough to warrant any mention. You might have a point if the symbol was as common as, say, the resin identification codes, but it doesn't seem to be the case. wctaiwan (talk) 17:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits

Hi Bjerrebæk.

Please note that the current scope of this article is not limited to therapeutic antimicrobial agents, but covers all manner of antimicrobial agents (antiseptics, disinfectants, preservatives, experimental antimicrobial agents) and antimicrobial processes (heat, radiation). Whilst your particular area of interest may be therapeutic antimicrobial agents, I don't see the benefit of putting random words associated with this one sub-topic in boldface type for the average reader.

Regarding your other edits, it is reasonable to say that (a) the clinical application of antimicrobial agents was known as chemotherapy, (b) the clinical application of antimicrobial agents or anticancer agents is known as chemotherapy (in academic circles anyway), or (c) the clinical application of antimicrobial agents is known as antimicrobial chemotherapy. However, you can't say that the clinical application of antimicrobial agents is known as chemotherapy. That's a completely unbalanced viewpoint.

Thanks,

tH0r (talk contribs) 12:11, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, I say no such thing. I maintain that clinical use of antimicrobial agents is traditionally referred to as such, which is correct, and which has been extensively discussed before. The continued use of the term chemotherapy is evidenced by titles of key journals in the field, as previously discussed (eg. ASM's Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and Karger's Chemotherapy), so your wording which claims that the term is no longer used at all is unbalanced and inaccurate. This article is also the main article for chemotherapy in the antimicrobial context, which redirects here, and as such this subtopic needs to be visible in the introduction. Also, this is not the article about oncological chemotherapy; the fact that the word chemotherapy is also used in that context is not relevant in the article antimicrobial. This article is not a definition or disambiguation of the word chemotherapy, but deals specifically and only with the antimicrobial form of chemotherapy (as a subtopic of antimicrobials more broadly). Bjerrebæk (talk) 16:51, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Bjerrebæk.

I'm struggling to follow your logic. What you seem to be saying is that, because no Wikipedia articles exist on antimicrobial chemotherapy, this entitles you to give undue emphasis to it as a sub-topic of this article. That would be an untenable argument even if there were no articles on antimicrobial chemotherapy. As it happens, there are three Wikipedia articles dedicated to antimicrobial chemotherapy ie. antibacterial drugs, antifungal drugs, and antiviral drugs. I invite you to have a look.

Moving on to the next point, I think you misunderstood my original message. It's perfectly reasonable to say "the clinical application of antimicrobial agents or anticancer agents is known as chemotherapy" (in the same way that it's reasonable to say "England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are known as the United Kingdom"). However, it's not reasonable to say "the clinical application of antimicrobial agents is known as chemotherapy" (any more than it's reasonable to say "England is known as the United Kingdom"). It's not reasonable because the clinical application of antimicrobial agents is no longer the only type of chemotherapy.

Thanks,

tH0r (talk contribs) 10:51, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

PS. I don't see how inclusion of the word "traditionally" negates either of the above comments. If I'm missing something, please explain.

You seem to misunderstand how Wikipedia works. When the word chemotherapy is used in the article antimicrobial in the context of therapeutic use of antimicrobials, it is only in the antimicrobial sense, and oncology is irrelevant here. This is because the article antimicrobial is not the disambiguation of or a definition of the word chemotherapy (the article chemotherapy serves that purpose because it occupies the plain word; that is, it is where you land when you search for "chemotherapy" and you have to specifically look for antimicrobial chemotherapy to get to the article antimicrobial). If the plain word chemotherapy had redirected here, on the other hand, we would have needed to disambiguate between different meanings of the word. Bjerrebæk (talk) 14:08, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bjerrebæk.

You haven't responded to my first point. Will you concede that it is inappropriate to put undue emphasis on one sub-topic of this article just because that sub-topic happens to be of interest to you? Or are you suggesting that anyone who likes can come along and put random words that are of interest to them in boldface type?

As for the second point, you seem to be saying that disambiguation is not necessary in this article (only in the Chemotherapy article). If disambiguation is provided elsewhere, then why is it necessary to talk about "chemotherapy" or "oncological chemotherapy" in this article at all? You could just write:

"An antimicrobial is an agent that kills microorganisms or inhibits their growth. Antimicrobial medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they act primarily against. For example, antibacterials are used against bacteria and antifungals are used against fungi. They can also be classified according to their function. Agents that kill microbes are called microbicidal, while those that merely inhibit their growth are called microbiostatic. The clinical application of antimicrobial agents is known as antimicrobial chemotherapy or antiinfective chemotherapy."

Thanks,

tH0r (talk contribs) 16:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "undue emphasis on one sub-topic" and not because it allegedly "happens to be of interest to" me. The therapeutic use of antimicrobials is a major topic in this context, and this is also the article for therapeutic use of antimicrobials (at least the overview article, although there are other more specific articles on various subtopics). If you read the article chemotherapy, it tells you to look here (antimicrobial) for antimicrobial chemotherapy. Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:33, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bjerrebæk.

Is the word "disinfectant" in boldface type? No. Is the word "antiseptic" in boldface type? No. Is the word "chemotherapy" in boldface type? Yes. QED: You are giving this sub-topic "undue emphasis".

The article Chemotherapy no longer redirects readers here. I've created a disambiguation page entitled Antimicrobial chemotherapy. I hope that resolves the issue for you. If not, please explain why and I'll try to find an alternative solution.

Thanks,

tH0r (talk contribs) 09:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like an acceptable solution. Bjerrebæk (talk) 13:51, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Merge proposal

Microbicide is synonym and a stub page; merging here would be better for readers. Klbrain (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]