On why Substack – and your support -matters so much

Yesterday, a Nature magazine writer asked me to comment for an article on “Substack and people who use Substack for health/science information.”

Since Nature’s view of mRNA Covid shots is that they “have saved millions of lives… [with] no signs of slowing down,” I’m not sure the magazine will give my views a fair shake. Still, I asked the writer to send questions.

The first: How/when/why did you start on Substack?

Which got me thinking about the first real piece I wrote here, on June 15, 2021, on the short life and terrible death of Simone Scott — who had died just four days before.

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(Four years in, it’s never too late to support the truth.)

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My move to Substack was essentially defensive.

Twitter was under heavy pressure to censor mRNA Covid vaccine skeptics1. Amazon had published the Unreported Truths booklets, but it was facing heat too, and the booklets had a long publishing cycle.

Substack wasn’t a perfect substitute for Twitter, but I figured it would let me reach readers fast, and it claimed to be committed to free speech. Making money wasn’t my main goal. I had no idea many of you would pay.

Then I started reporting and writing about Simone Scott, and I realized Substack could be a vital outlet for the kind of journalism impossible on Twitter at the time — long-form, serious articles that didn’t require dozens of tweets to assemble but that could could compete in a daily news cycle.2

I still think about Simone. Probably not as much as I should, but I do. The cliche held for her. She had her whole life ahead of her — she was talented and pretty and had just finished her first year at her dream school.

She died after her heart failed. Her heart failed after her second mRNA Covid shot.

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(Simone Scott, 2001-2021, rest in peace)

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I wanted to write a real article about Simone and what had happened to her, not a Twitter thread. Substack gave me that chance. And over the next few months, more and more of you found me.

Twitter’s ban in August 2021 meant I lost most of my audience, it was a great victory for censors. But Substack meant I could not be completely silenced. And I am grateful Substack kept its commitment to free speech even in the winter of 2022, when would-be censors — not satisfied with kicking me off Twitter — tried to force it to silence me.

But most of all I am grateful for your support, which has made this work possible.

Thank you.

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Here’s how the story about Simone began:

19-year-old Simone Scott was excited to get her second dose of Moderna’s Covid vaccine on May 1.

Now her mother Valerie Kraimer is arranging her funeral.

Simone, a first-year-student at Northwestern University, suffered a case of apparent myocarditis-induced heart failure on Sunday, May 16. Despite extraordinary measures to save her, including a heart transplant, she died Friday morning at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago.

Now her mother and father are struggling to understand what happened to their daughter – and why they had no idea that the Covid vaccines might be anything but safe.

“I lost my only daughter,” Kraimer said in an interview Sunday night. “I never thought I’d have to give up my daughter for the greater good of society.”

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(Covering the news. Even the news that should never have happened.)

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(The whole story is here — paywalled — sign up here to read it and all archived articles.)