Update: this petition is closed but there’s a new petition to try and get the lack of effective treatment options for ME debated in Parliament, which you can sign here.
Ok, so I bent the truth a bit there. It will take 30 seconds of your time if you skip what I’ve written, click this link, and sign the petition without reading what it’s about.
If you don’t mind spending a few more minutes, let me tell you why this is really important.
This is a petition asking for more funding for biomedical research into ME from the government. If you suffer or know someone who suffers from this illness, I’m sure you are well aware that funding is so low for ME research that patients and their loved ones have begun crowd funding the research we are desperate to have done.
I didn’t set up the petition, it was set up by a lady called Simone de Monerri, who I do not know, but the wonderful thing about this petition is that she has set it up on the parliament petition website.
What does that mean? Well it means we have a chance to put some pressure on Parliament on this issue. If we get 10,000 signatures the government will have to respond to the petition. This means someone having to justify why there is so little funding into ME research even if they choose to ignore the petition in terms of making change.
But I think we can do better. If we get 100,000 signatures it will be considered for debate in parliament. Now I don’t know how the “considered for debate” part is usually applied. I don’t know if it’s just used to filter out silly petitions like “The Chancellor of the Exchequer should wear a Darth Vader mask when announcing the Budget” (this is an idea off the top of my head, not a real petition), or if it means they can pick and choose what they want to debate.
But it would put pressure on the government to either justify this appalling lack of funding into biomedical research for ME, or to do something about it.
There are an estimated 250,000 people with ME in the UK. Obviously, not all of those people will come across this petition. But if those who do can each get a handful of their friends, family, aquaitances, whatever, to sign this, I really think it is do-able.
So, if you are in the UK, please take a few seconds to sign this petition and share it and urge your friends to do the same.
It could change our futures for the better. Here is the link again, in case you missed it: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/118175
Thank you,
Laura (and her pen)
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