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Science, Technology,
and Health
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My first major research project involved a study of the understandings of science, health, and medicine in the relations between the Brazilian religious movement known as Kardecian Spiritism and other major institutions in Brazilian society, such as the Catholic church, state, and medical profession. For more on that research, see Science and Medicine in Religious Movements.
My second major fieldwork-based project, beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the present, has involved the study of science and politics in alternative health movements. My most recent work is on the policy issues of stronger versus weaker integration, a synopsis of which was published in the American Journal of Public Health, and on the question of how the analysis of the CAM social movements can contribute to a broader understanding of social movements, the sociology and anthropology of knowledge, and globalization. This work is connected to my emergent interest in sustainability and local economies through the politics of food (see my article in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science below). Chapter three of the electronic pre-print of the first part of my book Alternative Pathways in Globalization (pdf file here) analyzes changing nutritional and therapeutic politics in relationship to globalization and the integration of CAM therapies.
In the mid 1990s, with support from the Ethics and Values program of the National Science Foundation, I interviewed clinicians, researchers, and advocacy leaders on the public understanding of science and the politics of complementary and alternative cancer therapies in the U.S. (Evaluating Alternative Cancer Therapies, Rutgers U. Press). Also with support from the same grant, Margaret Wooddell, a doctoral student in Rensselaer's program, and I interviewed a group of women who have demonstrated leadership in the movement for greater choice and complementary/alternative therapies for cancer (Women Confront Cancer, NYU Press). Somewhat earlier I wrote a historical analysis of the lost research tradition on bacterial vaccines and cancer (Can Bacteria Cause Cancer?), as well as several essays in various publications. This body of work combines long-term ethnographic and archival research on complementary and alternative cancer therapies with policy analysis and patient advocacy.
2006 "Angiogenesis Research and the Dynamics of Research Fields: Historical and Institutional Perspectives in the Sociology of Science." In Scott Frickel and Kelly Moore, The New Political Sociology of Science. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
2005 "Complementary and Alternative Medicine." In Sal Restivo, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society. Pp. 67-72. Oxford University Press.
2005 "Cancer." In Carl Mitcham, ed., Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Vol. 1: 285-288.
2005 "Complementary and Alternative Medicine." In Carl Mitcham, ed., Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics.. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Vol. 1: 384-387.
2004 "Medical Modernization, Scientific Research Fields, and the Epistemic Politics of Health Social Movements." Sociology of Health and Illness 26(6): 695-709. A pdf file is available for individual use by researchers if you email me at hessd@rpi.edu.
2003 "CAM Cancer Therapies in Twentieth-Century North America: Examining Continuities and Change." In Robert Johnston (ed.), The Politics of Healing. Routledge.
2003 "Technology, Medicine, and Modernity." In Arie Rip, Philip Brey, and Tom Misa, Technology and Modernity. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press.
2002 "Complementary or Alternative? Strong versus Weak Integration Policies." American Journal of Public Health 92(10): 1579-1581. A copy is available here.
2002 "The Raw and the Organic: Politics of Therapeutic Cancer Diets in the U.S." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Special issue edited by Helen Sheehan and Barrett Brenton on "Global Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Medicine." Vol. 582 (Sept.): 76-97. PDF file of the article here; link to American Academy of Political and Social Science here.
2000 "Patients, Science, and Alternative Cancer Therapies." In Preventing Cancer in North America, edited by Diane Wiener. Greenwood Press.
1999 Evaluating Alternative Cancer Therapies: A Guide to the Science and Politics of an Emerging Medical Field. Edited collection of interviews. Rutgers University Press.
1999 "Suppression, Bias, and Selection in Science: The Case of Cancer Research." Accountability in Research 6: 245-257.
1998 Women Confront Cancer: Making Medical History by Choosing Alternative and Complementary Therapies. Collection of interviews, coedited with Margaret Wooddell. New York University Press.
1997 Can Bacteria Cause Cancer? New York University Press.
1996 "Technology and Alternative Cancer Therapies." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 10(4): 657-74.
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