The organisations who endorsed the new guideline:

•  The Royal College of Physicians, in particular it’s Patient and Carer Network and the Joint Specialty Committee for Endocrinology & Diabetes (RCP) (Reg. Charity 210508)
•  The Association for Clinical Biochemistry (ACB) (No.863235)
•  The Society for Endocrinology (SFE) (Reg. Charity 266813)
•  The British Thyroid Association  (BTA) (Reg. Charity 1119631)
•  The British Thyroid Foundation (BTF) (Reg. Charity 1006391)
•  The British Thyroid Foundation Patient Support Group (BTF) (Reg.Charity 1006391)
•  The British Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. (BSPED) (Reg. Charity 283986)


“A Statement made on Behalf of ……”.www.british-thyroid-association.org/.../...ent.pdf .
OK, but WHO authored this statement - Mickey Mouse?

Is this why, when the Royal College have been asked to provide a list of the names of those on the working party,  they are ‘unable’ to do so?

At first glance, like me, you might be forgiven for thinking all the above organisations must  have the necessary medical evidence to back up the statements. Don’t be drawn into the web. They haven’t shown one scrap of evidence. Why, because it was Mickey Mouse who authored the guideline on their 'behalf'. Do we need to ask who Mickey Mouse is? I don’t think so.

Are these 7 completely separate organisations? Let’s take a closer look?

The British Thyroid Association (BTA), The British Thyroid Foundation (BTF) and the Association of Clinical Biochemists (ACB) were the authors of the UK Thyroid Function Test Guidelines (2006) – so these can be counted as ONE organisation. The BTF Patient Support Group is run by the BTF –so we can discount these as separate organisations.The BTA, BTF and ACB are close affiliates to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) – so still working under the same umbrella.

All the above organisations share joint meetings at The British Endocrinology Society (BES). Both BTA and BTF have a trustee in common and keep abreast of BES meetings. We can’t find that BES is a Registered Charity, but there are similarities in their list of meetings and the way they are ordered  'Associates'. Google BES and click on BES2009 - it takes you direct to the Society for Endocrinology (SFE.

www.endocrinology.org/meetings/2009/sfebes2009/. We come back again to just ONE organisation.

So, we are left with the British Society of Paediatric Edocrinology and Diabetes (BSPED), but hang on a second – they have a statement on their web site that they too are affiliated with the RCP and the Society for Endocrinology (SFE) – so again, we find there is only ONE organisation involved in the authorship of this guideline.  

I nearly forgot the involvement of the 'Clinical Endocrinology Trust' (CET) - are they related too?

Yes. The President of the BTA is a Trustee of CET - as was the past BTA president.

Now we know why other patient organisations and medical practitioners were not approached for their views – quite simply,they are not members of this very private club.