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This article analyzes the link between the trajectory of environmental health problems and the dynamics of the “epistemic conflicts” that their definitions give rise to in “discrete arenas” and the “public sphere,” as well as in “fields of experience.” The aim is to understand why publicizing the risks associated with perchloroethylene led to its subsequent ban, while chemical hypersensitivity syndrome hardly gets a mention in the public arena. In the case of perchloroethylene, we point out that the emergence of victims not only made the health risks tangible, but also reconfigured the interplay of actors, thereby precipitating the withdrawal of the solvent. In the case of multiple chemical hypersensitivity, our hypothesis is that its invisibility stems from unresolved “disputes” between scientists over the causes of this syndrome, but also to the existence of similar conflictual processes within the “fields of experience” between hypersensitive people and those around them.