Hi,
I mentioned this idea in another thread, but it didn't see to garner much interest there, so I am hoping a thread of its own will grab people's attention.
The basic idea is for a Facebook campaign to pressure the political parties into a commitment to get the NHS to review the NICE guidelines for ME so that they better reflect how ME is seen in other developed countries.
If we just got people to post a comment on the Facebook campaign page pledging to vote for any party who would make such a commitment, it's possible we could persuade one of the main parties to make such a commitment. If we then encouraged people to post a comment again on voting day confirming that they voted for that party, we might be able to put pressure on the whichever party gets into power to make a similar commitment.
This strategy relies on two factors: (1). the relative ease of running a Facebook campaign (a particular important factor in ME advocacy), and (2). the fact that the election is finely balanced (as it stands), which increases the chances of one of the parties making such a commitment in order to garner some much-needed votes.
If the reinstate Jeremy Clarkson campaign can get 800,000 plus comments in a couple of days, surely an ME campaign would be able to get a decent fraction of that over a couple of months!
A particularly important step would be getting the ME association and Invest in ME to support the campaign, so I will be asking both Dr. Shepherd and Prof. Edwards for input.
I mentioned this idea in another thread, but it didn't see to garner much interest there, so I am hoping a thread of its own will grab people's attention.
The basic idea is for a Facebook campaign to pressure the political parties into a commitment to get the NHS to review the NICE guidelines for ME so that they better reflect how ME is seen in other developed countries.
If we just got people to post a comment on the Facebook campaign page pledging to vote for any party who would make such a commitment, it's possible we could persuade one of the main parties to make such a commitment. If we then encouraged people to post a comment again on voting day confirming that they voted for that party, we might be able to put pressure on the whichever party gets into power to make a similar commitment.
This strategy relies on two factors: (1). the relative ease of running a Facebook campaign (a particular important factor in ME advocacy), and (2). the fact that the election is finely balanced (as it stands), which increases the chances of one of the parties making such a commitment in order to garner some much-needed votes.
If the reinstate Jeremy Clarkson campaign can get 800,000 plus comments in a couple of days, surely an ME campaign would be able to get a decent fraction of that over a couple of months!
A particularly important step would be getting the ME association and Invest in ME to support the campaign, so I will be asking both Dr. Shepherd and Prof. Edwards for input.