Tóxicos, pasado y presente

"One murder makes you a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify!" This is how Henri Verdoux, the poisoner imagined by Charlie Chaplin in 1947, reasoned. In contrast to the poisoning crimes of earlier times, few in number and individual, but promoters of many judicial investigations and toxicological investigations, the mass poisonings of the 20th century have remained largely Unpunished measure and those responsible have even been able to present themselves as heroes of modernity. This paradoxical situation reveals that toxins are material and political entities at the same time. Their effects cannot be understood apart from the societies that create, consume and tolerate them, nor can they be understood without taking into account the unequal distribution of risks and benefits that they generate. Through various episodes, this book reviews the production of knowledge and ignorance regarding toxics during the last two centuries, from the famous arsenic poisoning trials of the first half of the 19th century to the recent cases of poisoning and related environmental contamination. with products such as lead, asbestos, ddt or bisphenol A. This is how changing regimes for the management of industrial pollution, occupational health, food quality and environmental damage are discussed. The responses of the victims are also analyzed to shape knowledge, care and collective actions in the face of slow violence, epistemic imbalances and environmental injustices of the toxic world.