[Testing doses? Environmental health stakes associated with nanotechnologies]. / La dose a l'épreuve? Les enjeux de santé environnementale liés aux nanotechnologies.

In this contribution, we analyse how nanoscience and nanotechnology have given birth to an important environmental health controversy regarding the potential sanitary dangers of engineered nanomaterials. We show how this controversy is part of a larger picture, made of a series of social and scientific disputes about the effects of man made chemicals on the human body. We show how these disputes have contributed throughout the 20th century to the emergence and the transformation of toxicology as a scientific field, and to test the robustness of the dose paradigm that constitues the cornerstone of this discipline. We suggest that the contemporary emergence of a new scientific field known as "nanotoxicolgy" must be interpreted as a successful adaptation of this paradigm to the specific toxicological questions raised by engineered nanomaterials.

[Occupational health policies through the prism of sociology and public action]. / Les politiques de santé au travail au prisme de la sociologie de l'action publique.

The article attempts to show how sociological approaches to public policy can be useful to understand the political specificity of the field of occupational health in France, although they remain rare on that question. They help us to understand how this field is structured through established compromises between interested parties including administrations, employers and employees' representatives, and how these compromises contribute to the relative public invisibility of occupational diseases. They also make it possible to see how these compromises are weakened by a series of contemporary evolutions: diversification of the employees' political and decision-making representation, increasing importance of the victims and of litigation arising from conflicts over these issues. Finally, they help us to describe the way this field resists these changes.