March 25, 2009

petition

Just when we, as thy­roid patients, are not only pro­ving the supe­rio­rity of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment by our chan­ged lives, but are making good tiny steps in edu­ca­ting our doc­tors, comes a com­plete nation taking Armour away. Yup, the medical-Brit-authorities-that-be, in all their bri­lliant ludic­rous wis­dom, did just that last month, explai­ned here.

And then it was expe­rien­ced per­so­nally by a thy­roid patient in the UK on Feb. 20th when her Armour was in fact, taken away.

Below is the hea­ding to the peti­tion, and don’t ya love the final sen­tence. GOOD FOR TPA-UK!

To:  UK Govern­ment Office of Fair Tra­ding We the under­sig­ned peti­tion the Government’s Office of Fair Tra­ding and the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion for medi­cal jus­tice in the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of patients suf­fe­ring from the symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, in spite of current medi­cal prac­ti­ces. The peti­tion is sup­por­ted by the fact that medi­cal science shows that through a pro­per appli­ca­tion of modern medi­cal and scien­ti­fic know­ledge those res­pon­si­ble for our well-being should be capa­ble of res­to­ring us back to opti­mal health.

Because of subs­tan­tial con­fu­sion in the endoc­ri­no­logy spe­cialty, patients con­ti­nue to suf­fer, and the follo­wing lament by Doc­tors Anthony Toft and Geof­frey Bec­kett must, once and for all, be put to rest.

It is extraor­di­nary that more than 100 years since the first desc­rip­tion of the treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism and the current avai­la­bi­lity of refi­ned diag­nos­tic tests, debate is con­ti­nuing about its diag­no­sis and management.

http://www.petitiononline.com/tpauk123/petition.html

**Want to be infor­med of these blog posts when they appear? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind in her acti­vism for bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment? Just go to the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the left and at the bot­tom of the links.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 8:08 am and is filed under Thyroid treatment, uk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Thyroid Tidbit: sign the petition for MEDICAL JUSTICE in the UK”

  1. ibeji said:

    Mar 30, 09 at 2:39 am

    Although I greatly sup­port the idea of a peti­tion against the outra­geous deci­sions taken lately by the UK medi­cal board with res­pect to the appa­lling gui­de­li­nes for diag­no­sis and the­rapy of hypothy­roi­dism they have impo­sed on doc­tors and patients, I per­so­nally think that the above peti­tion is much too vague in what it actually demands.

    The fact that even after more than 100 years since the first desc­rip­tion of hypothy­roi­dism debate of its diag­no­sis and treat­ment still con­ti­nues is not an evil thing per se.

    On the con­trary, it may be bene­fi­cial to patients if methods are dis­cus­sed and refi­ned in the course of advan­ces in science.

    The peti­tion the­re­fore in my opi­nion com­ple­tely mis­ses the point: Not the dis­cus­sion should be ter­mi­na­ted as soon as pos­si­ble, but the refu­sal of the UK medi­cal board to ack­now­ledge the advan­ces in medi­cal know­ledge as to the best diag­no­sis and treat­ment, and the stub­born­ness with which the board wants to turn back the wheel of time, should be correc­ted as soon as possible.

    What they are in fact impo­sing on doc­tors and patients is WORSE than the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of many deca­des, if not a cen­tury, ago!

    THAT is the scandal!

    I’d the­re­fore like to draw the atten­tion to the peti­tions of the Inter­na­tio­nal Hor­mone Society (a society of doc­tors and patients which sup­ports the diag­no­sis and treat­ment accor­ding to the most advan­ced insights con­cer­ning hypothy­roi­dism and other, fre­quently asso­cia­ted, hor­mo­nal imbalances):

    intlhormonesociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=71
    intlhormonesociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=53

    In par­ti­cu­lar, the Phy­si­cians’ Con­sen­sus #1 “Thy­roid Hor­mone The­rapy of Hypothyroidism”:

    intlhormonesociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=71&tomHack_idp=1

    and the “PATIENTS’ PETITION FOR BETTER DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT CHOICE FOR HYPOTHYROID PATIENTS”:

    intlhormonesociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=53&tomHack_idp=10

    Note that Janie from STTM has also been invol­ved in the com­pi­la­tion of this petition.

    Maybe these peti­tions can be a source of ins­pi­ra­tion for the for­mu­la­tion of a more pre­cise and deman­ding peti­tion text?

  2. Eric Pritchard said:

    Jul 13, 09 at 9:23 pm

    The con­fu­sion can be put to rest. The con­fu­sion is a sim­ple mat­ter of lan­guage that hides the rele­vant science. The lan­guage of hypothy­roi­dism is stuck in the early 20th Cen­tury when medi­cine belie­ved that there was a direct con­nec­tion bet­ween the thy­roid gland and the symp­tom pro­du­cing cells. This lan­guage has not chan­ged since the advance of medi­cal science has demons­tra­ted two bodily func­tions that lie bet­ween the thy­roid gland and the symp­tom pro­du­cing cells. These func­tions are the con­ver­sion of the rea­li­ti­vely inac­tive hor­mone, thy­ro­xine (T4), to the active hor­mone, triio­dothy­ro­nine (T3), and the recep­tion by the the symp­tom pro­du­cing cells of the T3.

    One defi­ni­tion of “hypothy­roi­dism” implies the inc­lu­sion of these func­tions while the pro­per defi­ni­tion exc­lu­des them. Thus, a patient that fits the broad impro­per defi­ni­tion but does not fit the narrow, pro­per defi­ni­tion is not ser­ved by medi­cine because the medi­cal prac­tice gui­de­li­nes do not address those patients. The gui­de­li­nes neither disc­laim “medi­cal juris­dic­tion” over them for not ser­ving their inte­rests nor gui­des their diag­no­sis and the­rapy. Con­se­quently, for the lack of pro­per lan­guage, the medi­cal science that would guide the pro­per treat­ment of the fai­lu­res of endoc­ri­no­logy is fog­ged in a blan­ket of vague­ness and confusion.

    On this point, the debate need not go on and on. It has gone on without reso­lu­tion for deca­des, ever since some phy­si­cians noted that some patients were resis­tant to levothy­ro­xine sodium — a T4 repla­ce­ment. Of course, they were resis­tant to T4. They were not so short on T4 as they were of other hor­mo­nes or enzy­mes. But the treat­ment with those hor­mo­nes or enzy­mes is not recog­ni­zed for some ratio­nale only those with the human frail­ties that crea­ted this depra­vity can explain.

    There is abso­lu­tely no ques­tion that this mat­ter must be resol­ved and resol­ved quickly. In fact, if one reads the pro­to­cols on wri­ting medi­cal prac­tice gui­de­li­nes, and one com­pa­res those gui­de­li­nes with the pro­to­cols, then one would learn or deduce that this pro­blem would be sol­ved if those pro­to­cols were followed.

    Unfor­tu­na­tely, they are not follo­wed. And for the suf­fe­ring patients, it is quite unfor­tu­nate that there is no medi­cal jus­tice for them.

    The peti­tion should be sig­ned by every one who cares for the lest fortunate.

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