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Based on an integrative conception of communication and mediation in public policy delivery, this article discusses the changing patterns of French government action in situations of controversy, in other words of public criticism or protest, in many different arenas, of public policy delivery in the field of health. In our analysis of the increasing specialization of “crisis communication” and the development of “crisis management” among ministries, we show how and why public players are gradually adopting new instruments. We also show the factors that limit these changes: the time factor that produces a contradiction between the complexity of validation processes for institutional communication and the concomitant reactivity to social networks; the difficulty of producing a unified discourse given the complexity of the topics concerned and the instability of scientific knowledge; the friction, and sometimes the irreducible difference, between patterns of administrative, political but also scientific, medical and communicational socialization among those involved in identifying and treating controversies. From the analysis of the way public players grasp and treat controversies, the principles and competences characteristic of communication functions emerge as ultimately subordinate to political decision- making and biomedical knowledge.