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NCP3 Mission / About Us
The National Campaign to Protect People in Pain is an all-volunteer Non-Governmental Organization and correspondence network dedicated to supporting patient access to safe and effective therapy for acute, chronic and intractable severe pain. Our network currently connects over 2500 clinicians, healthcare educators, patient advocates and care providers.
We seek to free clinicians (physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners and others) and pharmacists from government interference in clinical and individual practice for the management of severe chronic pain and addiction. We hope to promote individualized pain management based on clinicians’ knowledge and expertise, free from uninformed and universally harmful government interference.
We work in public media to influence public health policy and legislation at all levels, Federal, State, and Local, in order to protect pain patients and clinicians who care for them. Our publications are distributed to social media platforms serving over two million healthcare professionals. We are also networked with patient support networks under the umbrella of the Advocate’s Meeting House, serving tens of thousands of people in pain.
Vision
Our vision is that all patients with pain will receive the individualized pain management that they deserve; all should have access to legitimate pain medications as prescribed by their clinicians.
Principles
We believe that the doctor-patient relationship is the fundamental underpinning of quality patient care.
We assert that government oversight of medical care must be constrained, transparent, and applied equally and to all patients regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, personal wealth or political party.
Policymaking on pain management must be supported by scientifically validated research, free of government or institutional political bias. Data from published and validated scientific and medical research must be the principal factor applied in framing healthcare policy discussions concerning pain patients, their families, and their healthcare providers.
Pain patients and their knowledgeable advocates must become voices significantly shaping all public health policy and conclusions therefrom that are to be implemented in policy or law. Any change in government policy must provide legitimate and publicly transparent outcome measures that centrally incorporate and respond to patient feedback.
If it is about us, then it must include us!
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NCP3 GOALS
Goals of the National Campaign align closely with those declared in 2019 by six US national clinical associations representing over 560,000 physicians and medical students. Those organizations declared:
“Our organizations are firmly opposed to efforts in state legislatures across the United States that inappropriately interfere with the patient-physician relationship, unnecessarily regulate the evidence-based practice of medicine and, in some cases, even criminalize physicians who deliver safe, legal, and necessary medical care.” [1]
We believe that pursuant to those goals,
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Veterans Administration must be removed from policy making and guideline development roles in all areas of medicine other than contagious disease. The position of the CDC Director must no longer be filled from political appointments.
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The 2016 and 2022 CDC opioid prescribing guidelines and all derivative guidelines of the US Veterans Administration must be publicly repudiated and withdrawn without replacement. This action is mandatory due to multiple fatal errors of science and ethics in these documents, that were known to the authors and approving officials of those documents before publication.
The results of these errors have been denial of safe and effective pain care to millions of Americans, departure of thousands of healthcare providers from practice, and the suicide deaths of thousands of patients deserted in agony.
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We believe that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 must be significantly amended or repealed, removing the US Drug Enforcement Administration from all activities that criminalize the practice of medicine. Such activities include but are not restricted to scheduling drugs or setting production quotas of pharmaceutical drugs, and prosecuting healthcare providers who have been guilty of no crime or violation of professional standards other than attempting to treat patients in desperate pain. Regulation of clinical practice must devolve to State level under provisions of Article 10 of the US Constitution.
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We call for repeal of “injunctive relief” provisions of the US National Opioid Settlement, at both Federal and State levels; these provisions (initially issued in secret and still almost unknown to the American public) have established regulatory regimes on US pharmacies and drug distribution companies that are destroying patient lives and driving pharmacies out of business by arbitrarily restricting supplies of pharmaceutical drugs used in pain relief.
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We seek to educate patients, caregivers, clinicians, lawyers and legislators on the science and ethics of safe and effective pain care. Toward this end, we seek unpaid volunteers to build a National network of State and local coordinators to distribute announcements and calls for action to their own sub-networks, and to encourage political engagement to require change. These advocates will be expected to contact local District Offices of local, State and Federal legislators, and to physically visit these offices to make presentations provided by ncp3.org.
Within this network, distribution confidentiality will be preserved by BCC mailing lists, to avoid selective targeting of patients or their clinicians; no members shall be publicly identified without their express consent, even to each other.
We seek to directly interact with US State Boards of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, to substantially influence and moderate change in policy for adversarial proceedings against clinicians engaged in the practice of pain and addiction management. The present climate of de facto doctor and patient persecution and criminalization must be corrected in new policies and reeducation of both clinicians and regulators.
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Andrea Trescot MD, DrTrescot@gmail.com Author of over 200 books and papers in pain management. She is a world-renowned interventional pain physician, educator and author specializing in advanced pain management techniques.
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Former Director, Pain Fellowship Program, University of Washington.
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Past President, American Society for Interventional Pain Physicians,
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Sitting member of the 2017-2018 Joint Interagency Task Force on Best Practices in Pain Medicine.
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Past president of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians,
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Former director of pain fellowship programs at the University of Florida and the University of Washington.
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Current Chief Medical Officer of Curonix and previously of Stimwave.
Dr. Trescot is known for her expertise in cryoablation and nerve pain interventions, with a focus on both clinical innovation and global education in pain relief. She has been a key peer reviewer for several papers authored by NCP3 members.
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Barby Ingle barby@internationalpain.org is a leading patient advocate, motivational speaker, author, and educator recognized for her work in chronic pain and rare disease communities.
After being diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), now called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and later developing endometriosis and other chronic conditions, she became a prominent voice for pain patients and health care reform. She is current Vice President of the International Pain Foundation (iPain), which focuses on improving life for people in pain through education, access to care, and patient advocacy. She has provided testimony before the U.S. Congress and collaborated with organizations like the FDA to advocate for better healthcare policies affecting rare and chronic illness patients.
She is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, hosts media programs, and is a nationally recognized patient advocate, having received more than 40 awards for her advocacy work.
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Forest Tennant Jr, MD, DrPH
tennantfoundation92@gmail.com is a nationally recognized physician specializing in pain management and addiction medicine, known for more than fifty years of clinical, academic, and advocacy work dedicated to treating intractable and chronic pain. He was the founder and longtime director of the Veract Intractable Pain Clinics in West Covina, California, serving a population of patients with cancer, post-polio disease, and other severe pain conditions from 1975 until his retirement in 2018. Dr. Tennant’s commitment to chronic pain patients included outspoken advocacy for humane opioid prescribing and the advancement of a Pain Patient’s Bill of Rights in California.
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Jonelle Elgaway jelgaway@gmail.com is a chronic pain patient and advocate with over 25 years’ experience. She was co-founder and Executive Director of the National Pain Council. She is author of hundreds of social media videos for chronic pain patients and their healthcare providers.
Among Speakers Bureau members, she is one of the most natural as a public speaker and influencer. This is confirmed by her 2025 invited participation in a Florida training session on FDA Risk Estimation and Mitigation Strategies. She is also highly active in individual counseling and referrals for patients in distress.
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Kayvan Haddadan, MD, kayvanh@apdss.com holds numerous degrees and has gained valuable insight and experience in pain medicine and pain management throughout his education. Dr. Haddadan has published more than 30 research papers and projects, in the gastroenterology, pulmonology, pain management, infectious disease, endocrinology – hyperuricemia, endocrinology – diabetes, cardiovascular/endocrine – hyperuricemia, and cardiology – hyperlipidemia.
See https://drkayvanhaddadan.com/
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Kristen Ogden kristendogden@gmail.com is a prominent US patient advocate, recognized for her leadership within the National Campaign to Protect People in Pain and extensive work supporting individuals suffering from chronic pain. She is not a medical professional or scientist, but has been deeply engaged in advocacy since retiring from federal service in 2014, after a 36-year career—culminating as Director of Strategic Planning and Performance Management for the Defense Commissary Agency. Ogden has been a caregiver to her husband Louis Ogden (now deceased). Louis had chronic severe pain for most of the years of his life, managed with prescription opioids at doses measured in GRAMS per day. Kristen’s advocacy expanded as a result of their experiences navigating the pain management healthcare system.
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Lawrence Peskin, PsyD, JD lfpeskin@gmail.com served as Clinical Director of three comprehensive, behaviorally oriented, pain rehabilitation programs before entering law school.
Dr. Peskin has represented victims of medical negligence and had a significant exposure to mass tort litigation. He has extensive experience in pain rehabilitation and opiate dependence treatment, since the 1980s. After his transition to law in the 1990s, he has focused on efforts to address opiate-related issues through litigation and advocacy.
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L. Joseph Parker, MD, [email withheld] is a physician, scientist, and advocate who has practiced general and emergency medicine for over twenty-five years, with a major focus on pain management and addiction treatment. He is a former officer in both US Marine Corps and US Air Force, having served in Strategic Air Command and US Space Command.
Dr. Parker graduated from the Mayo Clinic with honors in Neuroscience and has developed protocols and procedures for pain and addiction clinics. He is known for his outspoken stance against what he describes as prosecutorial and political targeting of physicians who treat chronic pain. He is now serving a seven-year sentence in Arkansas, following a false conviction and denial of appeal.
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Mark Ibsen MD markmusheribsen@gmail.com 35 years in emergency medicine. He is nationally known as a physician treating pain refugees. With many others, he has expressed his frustration with the widespread lack of support for chronic pain patients, and with efforts by State Boards to discredit and suppress clinicians who provide such support over their objections. He has successfully defended himself from a multi-year unfounded persecution by the Montana Medical Board.
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Monty Goddard, PE, MSCE, montygoddard@msn.com Pain patient caregiver, patient advocate in California. Presently a NCP3 Program Lead for efforts to influence major changes in Board policy and advocacy for the retraining of California physicians on care for chronic pain patients.
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Pat Irving RN, M.Ed., dirving@sonic.net is a registered nurse with a Master’s degree in Education. She has over 35 years’ experience in healthcare administration including as National Leader for Risk and Patient Safety in the Kaiser Permanente insurance system.
Pat became active in chronic pain patient advocacy in 2022, when she was force tapered off of her legitimate pain medication. This experience led her to become an expert on harms being caused by the National Opioid Settlement Injunction. She has authored two articles on “the Injunction,” one in Pain News Network and another in Daily Remedy.
As a patient advocate, Pat has presented to legislative aides for the US House of Representatives and the Senate. She has also spoken before NIDA and FDA.
Most recently Pat is helping lead the NCP3 State Board Initiative [cross-link here], a group dedicated to influencing state boards of medicine and pharmacy across the United States. As part of this initiative, she provides periodic live stream advocacy updates on Dr. Forrest Tennant’s DocToks show.
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Stephen E. Nadeau MD stephen.nadeau@neurology.ufl.edu has 42 years’ experience as a behavioral neurologist and pain specialist. He is Professor of Neurology, University of Florida College of Medicine. He and Dr Lawhern have co-authored a series of ground-breaking papers on chronic pain and addiction treatment, and public health policy for regulation of opioid pain relievers.
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Emeritus Members of the Speakers Bureau
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Jay Joshi MD jjoshi45@gmail.com is a Board certified pain management clinician and publisher of Daily Remedy. He has authored or contributed to over 50 publications in pain management.
CEO - National Pain Centers
CEO - AAI
Health Physician Expert Witness
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Richard A Lawhern, Ph.D. Lawhern@hotmail.com, Founder of NCP3. Nationally recognized clinical educator and subject matter expert on public health policy for regulation of pain medicine and addiction medicine;
28 years volunteer service to patient communities, with over 300 papers and articles authored or coauthored in peer reviewed journals and mass media.
Author and faculty for two free online courses in Continuing Medical Education on guideline-informed best practices in pain and addiction management. These courses were invited, funded and published by HealthHIV and the Department of Health of the US District of Columbia; accreditation was by the Postgraduate Institute for Medicine.
KevinMD.com publications page: ~20 papers. https://kevinmd.com/post-author/richard-a-lawhern
European Society of Medicine: ~10 papers. Search on “lawhern”:
https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/search/search
The Two Opioid Crises: Problems, Causes, and Potential Solutions: An Analytical Review (supporting Dr Stephen E Nadeau as coauthor) https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/4846/99193547539
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