The article analyses the difference between the construction of scientific discourse and objects of science. For such, two studies are used as parameters for epistemological reflection. The first is the work of Latour and Woolgar (1997) which defends the thesis of the socially constructed nature of scientific facts. The second is the work of Delaporte (1999) that analyses the conditions which made the characterization of Chagas disease possible. The article uses the fundamental question of how to deal with unknown (or not yet scientifically constructed) objects and phenomena, such as certain types of organisms or "non-human" beings, which place us in real situations, such as "life or death," to highlight the limits of the constructionist approach.
Social construction of disease; Disease vectors; Constructionism; History of Science; Chagas disease