Please welcome... Deplatform Disease!
And find out how you can request me to cover specific questions that interest you
Welcome! This is Deplatform Disease, a blog about Vaccines, Immunology, COVID-19, and the misinformation on all the things in between!
You might all justifiably be wondering why my blog is now on substack, and in the interest of transparency, I think that’s a good starting point.
The short version is that I have had a recent change in financial circumstances (nothing dire, fortunately) and I now need a means to supplement my income; this seemed like the most practical way to do so. Additionally, many on substack post extensive vaccine misinformation with huge viewership and subscription levels, and I would like to push back on that directly with my own content on here.
Please note: all of my content will be freely available regardless of subscription status, and I will also be transferring my old content here, free to read.
One of the most frustrating things I have experienced as a science communicator is attempting to do a literature review only to find a key publication to have been paywalled, and more broadly, the inaccessibility of science is unacceptable. I do not wish to contribute to that. Subscription is a gesture of financial support if you find the content I produce to be worthwhile, no more no less. I also have plans to donate a portion of whatever I earn from this blog to vaccine-related charities once I reach a certain threshold.
Nonetheless, there will be some changes relative to the way I have done things in the past. Often my blog posts involve a lot of time reading through a lot of scientific literature and end up being quite long, and while I think that it’s helpful to have all the information consolidated in a single place, it takes a very long time to produce such posts (I have a backlog on over a dozen of them that I’ve been writing in piecemeal over months). Therefore, I plan to shift to instead having predominantly shorter posts done more frequently (ideally at least once a week, if only as a summary of relevant events occurring in the vaccines/immunology/COVID space).
Additionally, to help me to address your needs, I have this. It’s my NGL link where you can send me anonymous messages, including any specific topics you would like me to cover. I cannot promise I will do all of them, especially some of them which are very involved, but I will make my best effort to address as many of them as I can see having value.
I hope you will join me with enthusiasm in welcoming Deplatform Disease to its new home!