Thanks to everyone who has been emailing candidates and party leaders about migraine, this petition, and how we need some #migrainelove. If you get a response from anyone please do let me know so I can share it with everyone! You can message the No Aimovig No Vote facebook page or email me at ktxby@outlook.com.
So far we have:
A great #MigraineLove message of support from lead Liberal Party candidate for the Senate in NSW, the wonderful Hollie Hughes. Hollie has a great track record of advocating for all kinds of people with different disabilities, including founding the Country Autism Network - she gets it.
#MigraineLove from the Science Party. Leader Andrea Leong signed the petition herself and shared it with all of the Science Party in less than a day of being messaged. Thanks to all the other Science Party candidates and members we've seen sharing the petition too.
Independent candidate for Gilmore (NSW) Grant Schultz also gave us #MigraineLove. He gets that migraine is important and affects so many, and has committed to pursuing the issue if elected.
Lukewarm responses with similar language have been received from Labor, including from Bill Shorten's office, promoting the Affordable Medicines Guarantee. We'd like a specific commitment on migraine, or any message that shows they understand. UPDATE: after we posted this a number of people forwarded emails from Shadow Health Minister Catherine King that is basically the same, but does include specific information on the Aimovig and Emgality applications - we've posted the text to the Facebook page.
An infuriatingly bad response was received from The Australian Greens, specifically Queensland Senator Larissa Waters' office, disregarding managing migraine to being less important than dental care, and implying we and our evil drug company mates are trying to corrupt the democratic process and independence of PBAC. I only asked the Greens for a tweet or Facebook post in support of funding for migraine research and awareness to help get migraine on to the election agenda, so the flat no (but read our policies because we're morally superior) was really gutting.
You can read the most of the emails and messages of support in full on the Facebook page. If you're planning on voting Labor or Greens, tell them they need to do better on migraine.
Keep sharing, posting and tweeting the petition and sharing the #migrainelove. Thank you all.