Our Government e-petition
2011 - 2012

Thyroid UK submitted a Government e-petition asking them to fund research into T3 and/or natural desiccated thyroid treatment.

You can view the petition by going to http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19000

The wording of our e-petition is as follows:

Fund research into
T3 and/or natural desiccated thyroid treatment for hypothyroidism

Many patients with hypothyroidism continue to have symptoms on levothyroxine (T4) but find that their symptoms are often greatly reduced when they take liothyronine (T3) or natural desiccated thyroid.

Natural desiccated thyroid is only manufactured in the US and Canada but can be prescribed in the UK on a "named patient" basis.

Many doctors will not prescribe it because there are no randomised controlled trials as it was manufactured before licensing of medicines came into being.

Research has shown that some patients have benefited from natural desiccated thyroid but there needs to be more research done to investigate whether this would be a better treatment for patients.

More research also needs to be done on the addition of T3 to T4 because previous research has been inconclusive.

The petition closed on 13th October 2012 with a total of 5,214 signatures