"Dear supporters, “My initial thoughts when we launched this ME Association petition against NICE at the start of the week was that if we were very lucky we might get 5,000 signatures before having to make our stakeholder submission. “We have achieved 10,000 signatures in just five days - which is a fantastic response from the ME patient community, as well gaining some signatures from healthcare professionals! “We still have another 7 days to go - so the final figure seems likely to be several thousand higher. “Again, my initial thoughts were that the sort of figure we were hoping to achieve might not have that much effect on NICE. “But having over 10,000 patients expressing a vote of no confidence in the content of a NICE guideline just cannot be ignored. “It also gives us some powerful ammunition to use at a media and parliamentary level. “So thank you so much to everyone who has voted and commented. “And if you still need to vote please make sure you do so over the next few days! Dr Charles Shepherd Hon Medical Adviser, ME Association