You’ve found Treatment Science Writers
Over the course of the next couple weeks, we are going to start publishing a new website that, we hope, will develop into a way for medical science and treatment activist writers to market themselves and find novel ways of funding and publishing independent medical and treatment activist journalism. In the beginning, it may be mostly the work of a few, but we hope for it to develop into something of a collective/cooperative, with work that will be funded partly by direct donations, assurance contracts (via services such as kickstarter), and/or through creative licensing options (in other words, something the writer has expressed a desire to do, or is alreadly working on can be licensed out to other content providers or NGO’s/community-based organisations that publish reports, where the material would then find a home).
Although the front page will be presented to look like a newsite, our goal is not to compete with, but to rather market ourselves to sites like aidsmeds.com, scispeaksblog, aidsmap, the body or i-base, hivandhepatitis.coms, etc — to serve as something of a nursery for freelancers and to generate content for them, and perhaps for NGO’s such as TAG, GNP+, MSF, the International HIV and AIDS Alliance, Human Rights Watch, or big multilaterals, such as WHO, UNAIDS, or donors such as Soros or Gates as well. Even though some of us are working mostly on HIV and TB, we do not want this site to be limited to those diseases. We are concerned about improving health care delivery in the world and in the village — and in particularly, how can health care systems in resource limited settings can be strengthened to manage all the challenges they confront.
So think of the site as a way to nurture new (or fed-up/burnt-out) treatment journalists, activists and educators and perhaps to encourage people with other day jobs (in lab or at the health centres) to contribute their expertise and write about their experiences. Anyone who knows the field knows this will clearly not be a get-rich-(ever) scheme… but we hope we can make it into the lifeboat some of us need.
Watch this space over the few next weeks.
So for awhile, you may still see the scaffolding —but we’re getting there! — and we really want you to know when we’re ready. To stay updated subscribe to our RSS feed with your favorite reader or via email.