We are very happy to report that both Houses of the Japanese National Diet adopted of Japan ME Association’s 2016 petition during this year’s extraordinary Diet session. With our last petition adopted by the House of Councillors in 2014 and by the House of Representatives in 2015, success on our petitions at the legislature for the third year in a row is a truly remarkable achievement. Our petition was the only one adopted by the House of Councillors’ Health, Labour and Welfare Committee during this Diet session and just one of two adopted by the House of Representatives.
Thanks to the hard work of many, 105 bipartisan Diet members across seven political parties and two independent Diet members agreed to introduce the petition, and we gathered nearly 14,000 signatures. The signatories included not only patients and their families, but people who learned about ME for the first time through the petition who wished to help improve the situation of patients. We express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone. The petition will be delivered to the Cabinet, and the Cabinet will issue updates on the petition items to the House of Representatives approximately twice annually.
We believe that our October international academic symposium (supported by the Ministry of Health and Japan Medical Association, sponsored by the Nippon Foundation, and where the President of the Japan Neurology Association gave remarks) had a positive impact on the petition’s adoption. We continue to hope for advances in research for ME by specialist researchers, the establishing of a national medical system where ME patients may receive medical treatment, and for research into effective treatments for the disease similar to that which is being conducted abroad. We thank you in advance for your continued support towards these important goals.
Japan ME Association 