At the risk of making myself unpopular.......!

[MacG]

The e-petition!

Have been tracking its steady BUT SLOW progress towards 100,000 signatures. I have been busy for the last couple of weeks drafting a letter to my MP. I want to give him some scope of the problem and would like to draw his attention to the e-petition. However, I am hesitating. 5,260 signatures doesn't reflect in any way the scale of the problem and I am struggling to understand why we should not be well on the way to 100,000 signatures by now. Louise and co. are doing a brilliant job on our behalf. COME ON EVERYONE OUT THERE!

Signing the e-petition yourself is great, but it isn't enough. Can you also pass it on? It is not unusual for each person in a household to have a different e-mail address. Has absolutely everyone in your household signed?? If the 5,260 signatures we already have is doubled - passing it onto just one more person - that is over 10,000 signatures. Pass it on again to two more people and that is over 20,000 signatures. Not only is that well on the way to 100,000 signatures it starts to look like a critical mass of people - a serious issue!

The day-to-day challenges of living with a thyroid condition can leave me feeling lonely and isolated. The quest to regain my health can at times leave me feeling hopeless. What keeps me going is the knowledge that things are moving forward and that I am not alone in what I am experiencing. This perhaps explains my (some would say rather unhealthy) obsession with the progress of the e-petition.

I smiled when I read John Midgley's statement relating to a recent academic paper which provides a compelling argument as to how and why T4 monotherapy is not enough for many people: "Just thought you'd like to know that the avalanche is beginning." Never mind an avalanche.......Let's create a perfect storm!

[LouiseRoberts]

As if you could EVER be unpopular!

Just adding in the link...

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

and pinning this...

xxx

5,262 now... xxxxx

[MacG in reply to LouiseRoberts]

Thanks Louise!

[Pooh10]

Another option is to print out the petition with or without a short note and give to people in your area that you know but don't have their email address e.g. Vet, cleaners, coffee and clothes shop etc. My family and I have all done this and it definitely added a number of signatures. Imagine the impact if we all did that?

[MacG]

Exactly! I have found that if you actually speak to people about it/give them a flyer they are much more likely to respond rather than if you just send it out electronically. We all get bombarded with so much electronic information anyway.

[Vickiti]

I never thought about signing with my other email address! Done it now thanks and passing it on again

[claudiasmum]

Signed, tweeted, FB shared etc. Hope it got a few more signatures.

[MacG]

Brilliant! We've got to get this moving!!

[alangardner]

I could not agree any more with you , I signed and passed on to many others some time ago -- and asked that they pass it on to their contacts --- but the main problem with people is APATHY .....how many people use and gain knowledge , advice ,empathy ,understanding and a mired of other things from this site but NEVER do anything to support it AND THE GOOD PEOPLE THAT CONTINUE TO MAKE IT AVAILABLE .....I for 1 know that but for this site my lady would still be in the middle of that damn great dark tunnel --- which would then impact on the entire household ---- sorry for my little rant but I do feel extremely strongly on this and I personally will do whatsoever I can to help these good guys[ & gals] ......alan xx

[MacG]

We've just got to believe that we can do this!

[claudiasmum]

How much money is actually needed to do the research?

[LouiseRoberts in reply to claudiasmum]

Not sure Claudia.

But I think this is more about making the DOH AWARE that research is needed.

L

x

[LouiseRoberts]

5,303....

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

We have a little flyer that I can email to people if they would like it.

[e-mail]

It also goes out with every Information Pack that we send...

x

[Churchie in reply to LouiseRoberts]

I run a mail order business and would be happy to include a small flyer with orders as another person said they would.. Do you have a PDF or publisher file that I can print onto a6 sized paper?

[LouiseRoberts in reply to Churchie]

Brilliant! I only have it as small as A5 at the mo, will see what I can do!

Please drop me an email... [e-mail]

L

x

[cario]

Hi Louise,

I posted the link to the petition on facebook and only my daughter took any notice! I poster another comment asking for at least one other person I know to sign it! then one of my friends did. That was it! zilch. Unbelievable when people spend hours doing mindless crap on fb. I am going to email it to everyone I know and ask them to pass it on, hve just been waiting until I feel well enough. But I will try and do it this weekend.

Don't apologise for persisting, it's the only way. I was wondering if a group of us thyroid people could meet in our local town with clipboards and get signatures that way, I did do that for the anti-fluoride group once and it was reasonably successful. It's just that one needs to be armed with the knowledge to answer any awkward questions.

Caroline

[LouiseRoberts in reply to cario]

Hi Caroline

That wouldn't work unfortunately, unless you had an ipad with you...!! People have to sign on the .gov website and validate their signature via email...

L

x

[cario in reply to LouiseRoberts]

oh well that's clobbered that idea then. If I was thinking straight I may have thought that through. I'm doing some stupid things because I'm not thinking straight!

Caroline

[LouiseRoberts]

5,324!

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

PLEASE sign, share, tweet!

We have a few people who are pushing this for all they are worth....

A HUGE THANK YOU to them!

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

L

xx

[LouiseRoberts]

Seriously ground to a halt now!

5,338

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

[claudiasmum]

Last time I signed one of these petitions, you could see who had signed it (you could stay anonymous if you wanted to) and as you signed, you could write something about yourself and why the petition was important to you. The comments made good reading and I am sure inspired others to sign when they might have been hesitating.

This petition doesn't seem to have that feature. I don't know whether it was optional when the petition was created or whether it can be amended but it does seem a useful feature to have, also for the benefit of the person who it eventually will be presented to (not sure how that bit works). A petition with just signatures doesn't seem quite so valuable.

Forgive me if I have missed something or just misunderstood.

[LouiseRoberts in reply to claudiasmum]

This is a .Gov petition and, as such, the format and rules surrounding what can and cannot be posted and seen is set by them I'm afraid!

I suspect that the previous petition you signed was probably hosted on a site such as change.org.

IF the petition reaches 10,000 it will automatically qualify for a comment from the Department of Health. There is no need for us to present it.

If, by some miracle, it reaches 100,000 it is possible that it would be debated in the House of Commons.

Hope this helps!

L

x

5,361 - epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

[claudiasmum in reply to LouiseRoberts]

Thanks so much for explaining. Yes the other one was on Change. I didn't realise they were different.

Will continue to ask people to sign it. 10,000 doesn't seem too far off.

[LouiseRoberts in reply to claudiasmum]

Brilliant! Thanks! xxx

[LouiseRoberts]

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/pe...

5,382

Sign, Share, Tweet - PLEASE!

Help us reach 10,000!

L

x

[malimali]

maybe some,like me have our signature refused.my reason was invalid postcode-(its australian,and the only one i've got.. lol)

[Spareribs in reply to malimali]

The petition ended on 30th March with 12,114 signatures & a government response.

Were you still able to access it?

[malimali in reply to Spareribs]

yes,it bought up the page,but when i put in my postcode it rejected,and told me the postcode was invalid.i thought it was because it was an australian postcode,not uk..

[Spareribs in reply to malimali]

That's strange - it says' it's archived although it does say...

"This e-petition remains open to signatures and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100 000 signature threshold"

I can't access it anymore..

thanks for trying to sign it!

[malimali in reply to Spareribs]

its odd,because i can't access it now,either.i wanted another look,and its now telling me its archived,too..really strange..