Anti-vaxxers making ‘at least $2.5m’ a year from publishing on Substack

Center for Countering Digital Hate research calculates that anti-vaccine figures could be making $12.5m from the online platform

A group of vaccine-sceptic writers are generating revenues of at least $2.5m (1.85m) a year from publishing newsletters for tens of thousands of followers on the online publishing platform Substack, according to new research.

Prominent figures in the anti-vaccine movement including Dr Joseph Mercola and Alex Berenson have large followings on Substack, which has more than 1 million paying subscribers who sign up for individual newsletters from an array of authors who include novelist Salman Rushdie, the writer musician Patti Smith and former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings.