Diversity of attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccines: A representative cross-sectional study in France.

How much does endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) correlate with negative attitudes towards vaccines? One of the difficulties of analysing the relationship between attitudes to CAM and attitudes towards vaccines rests in the complexity of both. Which form of CAM endorsement is associated with what type of reticence towards vaccines? While the literature on the relationship between CAM and attitudes towards vaccines is growing, this question has not yet been explored. In this study we present the results of a survey conducted in July 2021 among a representative sample of the French mainland adult population (n = 3087). Using cluster analysis, we identified five profiles of CAM attitudes and found that even among the most pro-CAM group, very few respondents disagreed with the idea that CAM should only be used as a complement to conventional medicine. We then compared these CAM attitudes to vaccine attitudes. Attitudes to CAM had a distinct impact as well as a combined effect on attitudes to different vaccines and vaccines in general. However, we also found a) that attitudes to CAM provide a very limited explanation of vaccine hesitancy and b) that, among the hesitant, pro-CAM attitudes are often combined with other traits associated with vaccine hesitancy such as distrust of health agencies, radical political preferences and low income. Indeed, we found that both CAM endorsement and vaccine hesitancy are more prevalent among the socially disadvantaged. Drawing on these results, we argue that, to better understand the relationship between CAM and vaccine hesitancy, it is necessary to look at how both can reflect lack of access and recourse to mainstream medicine and distrust of public institutions.

Pathways for diversifying and enhancing science advocacy.

Science is under attack and scientists are becoming more involved in efforts to defend it. The rise in science advocacy raises important questions regarding how science mobilization can both defend science and promote its use for the public good while also including the communities that benefit from science. This article begins with a discussion of the relevance of science advocacy. It then reviews research pointing to how scientists can sustain, diversify, and increase the political impact of their mobilization. Scientists, we argue, can build and maintain politically impactful coalitions by engaging with and addressing social group differences and diversity instead of suppressing them. The article concludes with a reflection on how the study of science-related mobilization would benefit from further research.

Like a finely-oiled machine: Self-help and the elusive goal of hormone balance.

For over twenty years, medical doctors writing self-help books for major trade publishers have promoted hormone balance as a desirable physical state, particularly for women. To understand how hormone balance is presented as an actualizable health objective, we examine self-help hormone balance books written by medical doctors and published between 2003 and 2021 by major American trade presses. Books deploy a model of endocrine determinism that defines most health conditions as the consequence of imbalanced hormones, particularly for women whose bodies are said to be perpetually at risk of imbalance. The pathway to balanced hormones, we find, involves intensive lifestyle changes and consumption practices that are unachievable except for the most privileged readers. Our analysis reveals hormone balance to be a fantasy biological state that reflects a fundamental tension in neoliberal modernity, that of bodies breaking down from the strain modern life places on individuals, and bodies needing to accomplish more under ever-demanding social and economic conditions. We conclude with a reflection on the semantic flexibility of "balance" as an ambiguous term that can signify the very opposite of harmony and moderation, and the role of medical doctors as self-help entrepreneurs.