At the meeting, Lyn Mynott began reading a brief introductory statement by FRF. Karen Goodfellow (Research Development Officer of Thyroid UK) provided attendees with a full written version of the statement. The statements contain the official conclusions of FRF on T4 replacement therapy. The statements are based on the assessment of thousands of published scientific studies and on several types of studies conduced by FRF researchers and others.

Censorship by Some Members of Medical Advisory Board. Despite the sound scientific basis of FRF's official statement, some members of the Medical Advisory Board walked out of the meeting during Lyn's presentation. As they were leaving, they stated that they would listen only when shown the results of randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Had these members bothered to wait and read FRF's official statement, they would have learned that the types of controlled studies they demanded had already been done. FRF researchers published three such studies in 1997. Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum and colleagues published another such study in 2001. Dr. Teitelbaum was present at the meeting to discuss the 2001 study—a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled treatment trial. He was for all practical purposes ignored by the departing doctors when he asked them what the problem was.

The members of the Medical Advisory Board who walked out of Lyn Mynott's were suppressing, by refusing to listen to, information they found objectionable on pseudoscientific grounds. Their demand for a type of study that had already been done makes their grounds pseudoscientific, and objecting to Lyn's presentation of FRF's official statement by walking out in protest is pure censorship. Since that time, April 2002, FRF's statement is supported by a great deal more scientific evidence. But many physicians and others obstinately refuse to look at with the scientific spirit of an open mind. As the old saying goes, their minds are like the iris of the eye: the more light you shine on it, the tighter it closes.

Those physicians conduct is typical of physicians who let Big Pharma do their thinking for them. Steadfast censors of FRF's conclusions about fibromyalgia are many of the old-guard rheumatology fibromyalgia researchers—a group that has utterly failed in its attempt to understand fibromyalgia and to give patients any relief from their suffering.

As an example, consider the magazine for fibromyalgia patients titled Fibromyalgia Aware. The magazine censored an article its Editor-in-Chief me to write on fibromyalgia and thyroid hormone resistance. After Jackie Yellin and I completed the article and sent it to her—and after delay after delay and excuses for not publishing it—the Editor-in-Chief admitted to me in a recorded telephone conversation that editorial board members (most of whom are rheumatologists) were the censors. Members of that specialty have long refused to open-mindedly consider the overwhelming evidence that the main underlying mechanism of most patients' fibromyalgia is too little thyroid hormone regulation. (For a review of the evidence that inadequate thyroid hormone regulation is the main underlying mechanism of most patients' fibromyalgia, see Jackie Yellin's and my paper  in the open-access journal Thyroid Science.)

Because of censorship of many rheumatology fibromyalgia researchers, I was surprised that the Editor-in-Chief of Fibromyalgia Aware had asked me to write the article in the first place. And as Jackie Yellin and I wrote the article, I doubted that the magazine would actually publish it. We will soon publish a full account of the unseemly conduct through and associated with Fibromyalgia Aware.

On May 8, 2002, Lyn Mynott and Karen Goodfellow presented copies of FRF's official statement at the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group in the House of Commons. Below are links to the full text of FRF's brief introductory statement and our full statement.

| T4 Replacement: Obstacle to Recovery from Fibromyalgia: Brief Version |
| T4 Replacement: Obstacle to Recovery from Fibromyalgia: Full Version |

Update on the Ineffectiveness and Harm of T4 Replacement. As the years have passed since the 2002 censorship, studies by endocrinology groups themselves have provided substantial evidence that T4 replacement is ineffective and harmful to many patients—fibromyalgia patients among them. I have  verified the truth of this proposition in a number of publications in Thyroid Science. I refer clinicians, fibromyalgia patients, and any other interested people to the following papers:

| Thyroid Hormone Replacement Therapies:
Ineffective and Harmful for Many Hypothyroid Patients |

| Stability, Effectiveness, and Safety of Desiccated Thyroid vs
Levothyroxine: A Rebuttal to the British Thyroid Association |

We greatly appreciate your
continuing support of our research