March/April 2025

• NPAC submitted a formal comment on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s proposed Telemedicine Rule and assembled talking points for harm reduction and health policy organizations to use in their comments.

• NPAC filed a formal comment to the Food and Drug Administration in support of the Citizen’s Petition on Narxcare arguing that the algorithm should be regulated in light of studies showing it results in barriers to care.

• NPAC’s Executive Director, Kate Nicholson, and advisor, Stefan Kertesz, gave interviews for a series by Kerry Dooley Young for Medscape on the dangers of the algorithm.

• NPAC submitted a letter to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee related to the elimination of the Office of Pain Policy and Planning, the office coordinating pain research, at the National Institutes of Health. The letter resulted in a Congressional Inquiry.

• NPAC’s Executive Director, Kate Nicholson, gave an interview to STAT news about the elimination of the key pain office, the Office of Pain, Policy, and Planning at NIH, and NPAC’s President, Juan Hincapie-Castillo, penned an Op-Ed in The News & Observer on the office’s closure and the likely consequences for people with pain.

• NPAC worked alongside mission-aligned organizations to fight unprecedented cuts in Medicaid.

• NPAC helped to organize an in-depth session on advocacy at the 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting of the US Association for the Study of Pain in Chicago.

• NPAC’s Executive Director participated in the April meeting of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.

• NPAC’s Executive Director served as faculty at the 14th Congress of the European Pain Federation in Lyon, France.