Thyroid Petition Debate at Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 5 Feb (tomorrow!)

[Totoro]

This is edited and posted from an email I had from the TPA (Thyroid Patient Advocacy) although the parliament petition I believe is from individuals, with the TPA supporting them. I hope this does not contradict any guidelines by posting about another organisation. I'm not a member of their group but do get occasional emails.

If a change in thyroid care can happen in Scotland I believe it would benefit the whole of the UK as people could travel up to get care here and also use Scotland as an example to get better care in the rest of the UK.

"The TPA had a meeting with Elaine Smith, MSP at the magnificent Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh last year. The outcome of that meeting was that it was agreed that a Petition should be submitted to the Scottish Parliament Petitions Committee who would decide, in a case of dispute, whether it is admissible and if so, what action should be taken.

As far as I am aware, the Scottish Parliament is the only Parliament in the UK where a petition may be brought by an individual person (other than a member), a body corporate or an unincorporated association of members. The English Parliament requires 100,000 signatures before they will decide whether a Petition is admissible to be debated.

I am now delighted to inform you that a Petition entitled “Effective Thyroid and Adrenal Testing, Diagnosis and Treatment” has been submitted by Scottish residents Sandra Whyte, Marian Dyer and Lorraine Cleaver (all members of TPA) and this Petition will be discussed initially, in Parliament on Tuesday 5 February 2013.

The details of this Petition can be read here scottish.parliament.uk/Gett...

and you can watch the live debate of this initial discussion here scottish.parliament.uk/news...

If you miss this, you can watch the whole debate at any time later, but we don't have a link where you will be able to do this yet. Watch this space.

After the initial discussion on Tuesday 5 Feb.2013, the debate will be open to all who wish to submit comment and/or present further evidence for those who wish to support our cause.

TPA is strongly supporting this Petition by presenting the Scottish Parliament with extra evidence, supported by references to research studies.

It is vital that the Scottish Parliament is made as thoroughly aware as possible that the success of this Petition would have a crucial and positive impact on the lives of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens (and potentially millions worldwide) - so please do whatever you can to help."

I intend to write and submit my own personal evidence and ask them to support narrower TSH guidelines and giving patients the opportunity to try T3.

Let me know what you think.

Totoro x

[Shona64]

Brilliant news. Who do I email as I also will bombard them

[Hidden]

Edited slightly to turn the links into links.

There is some very interesting reading in the petition PDF.

Thyroid UK even gets a mention...

Scottish Parliament Meeting 27/03/2012 Sandra Whyte met with Elaine Smith MSP.

Representatives from Thyroid Patient Advocacy, invited by the petitioners, were in

attendance. Margaret McGregor (Thyroid UK) and Brian Cooney were also present.

Louise

x

[Hashi_since_age9-1988 in reply to Hidden]

That may be a mistake. Margaret Mcgregor is involved with the British Thyroid Foundation.

[Hidden in reply to Hashi_since_age9-1988]

Ahhh! Yes, you could be right! lol!

oh well!

Louise

x

[snowstorm]

This is fantastic news indeed. Have thought of writing to the TPA myself with a petition I tried to set up on change .org but there were too many characters so I failed. JHowever, have contacted my local MP and hope very much to get an interview. Fingers crossed. If successful will take my lap top as backup.

[vajra]

Great to see it getting some traction - to get to that stage is probably at least half the battle. Not only that, but if the scenario gets official recognition in Scotland it will make it very hard to ignore elsewhere.

I wrote to our Irish health minister setting out the scenario on the diagnosis of hypothyroidism (the issues with the blood tests, ignorance of symptoms etc) illustrated by my own history of many years of undiagnosed hypothyroidism followed by a thyroid cancer - the reply was basically to the effect that he was too busy on other business to take an interest....

ian

[Hashi_since_age9-1988 in reply to vajra]

This is a very common illness (1in20 I believe) so it should be seen as an important subject. It also has an impact on many other important illnesses eg heart disease and dementia. Perhaps the problem is they don't see it as an important priority and they need to be shown that it is. Maybe then it will be taken more seriously.

[Hashi_since_age9-1988]

The MSP mentioned here has an underactive thyroid and I believe was in bad health until she tried T3 and she now campaigns for better treatment of thyroid disease. Useful to have someone with more power to change things and can see for herself that thyroid treatment needs improving.

[shaws Administrator]

I hope they also have sent Dr John Lowe's Rebuttal to the British thyroid Association about their false statements.

thyroidscience.com/Criticis...

[Hidden]

For anyone who missed the live debate, we have this information, helpfully supplied by Helvella!

Have a look here:

scottish.parliament.uk/news...

On the main Scottish Parliament TV page it says:

Archive Video

Footage of plenary and committee meetings are available on the site for a month, and will be available within 24 hours of the close of the meeting.

scottish.parliament.uk/news...

I interpret that as saying by this time tomorrow (6th February 2013) the video of the committee meeting will be available and should be on the first link above. And will be there for a month.