The founder
Tony Hardy
I built this movement because I live it. In September 2018 a back injury ended my career and left me with severe nerve pain in my back, groin, and left leg. I use a scooter and a cane, and I sleep sitting up because lying down hurts too much. I tried a spinal-cord stimulator - three days in it made everything worse, and I had it removed while the rep kept pushing me to keep it. I have been refused at the pharmacy counter for medicine I legally needed. I am not an addict. I am dependent on what lets me function - and I built this so no one has to fight it alone.
Forced taper
Jay Lawrence
A Navy veteran in Tennessee, stable for about eight years on the medication that let him function. His dose was force-tapered under a misapplied 2016 guideline, and the relief that held his life together was stripped away. He is one of the names this movement carries.
In memory
Pharmacy refusal
Edie Fuog
Living with breast cancer, Guillain-Barre, and severe nerve pain, Edie was refused at the pharmacy counter around thirty times. She fought back: as the named plaintiff in Fuog v. CVS, her case was allowed to move forward in 2022. Proof that patients can push back.
▶ Watch her story
Survivor
Kate Nicholson
A former Justice Department civil-rights attorney, left unable to sit or stand for nearly twenty years after a surgical nerve injury. With proper treatment, she walked again, and went on to found the National Pain Advocacy Center. Her recovery is what real care makes possible.
▶ Watch her story
Cut off
Danny & Gretchen Elliott
A 1991 electrocution left Danny with more than thirty years of unrelenting pain. As the crackdown cost him one doctor after another, the care keeping him going disappeared, and he and his wife Gretchen were both lost within weeks of their doctor's license being suspended. A family erased by policy.
In memory
▶ Watch their story
Secret algorithm
A woman flagged by NarxCare
A hidden risk-scoring algorithm called NarxCare labeled one woman high-risk, partly because of prescriptions written for her pets. Her clinic dropped her. She asked to stay anonymous, and her story shows how a secret score can override a human being. Reported by Wired, KFF, and Nature Medicine.
▶ Watch her story
Pharmacy refusal
Susan Smith
A California mother with disabling migraines from brain scar tissue and fifteen documented allergies, refused and humiliated by her pharmacy for eight years. Her case in court was dismissed, but her experience is one that countless patients recognize instantly.
Denied care
Arianne Grand-Gassaway & Desiree
After being cut off, and even mailed a certified "drug seeker" letter, Arianne was left housebound. Her 35-year-old daughter Desiree, denied her own medication, was killed by a counterfeit pill from the illicit market: the exact tragedy these policies claim to prevent.
In memory
Forced taper
Maria Higginbotham
Documented by Human Rights Watch: Maria's doctor cut her dose by 75% out of fear of the crackdown, leaving her nearly bedridden. Not an addict. A patient, abandoned.
Landmark verdict
Henry James
One of the earliest reminders that undertreating pain has real consequences: a landmark jury verdict recognizing that a patient left in needless agony deserved justice.
▶ Watch the story
Device harm
Jim Taft
Told a spinal-cord stimulator would make him "good as new," Jim of South Carolina got the opposite. The Boston Scientific device failed after it was implanted, then shocked him so many times he fell down a flight of stairs. An Associated Press investigation documented his case; today he is largely confined to his bed. The "safer alternative" to medicine took what he had left.
▶ Watch his story
Forced taper
Robert Rose
A Marine veteran in Tennessee with severe service-connected pain in his back, spine, and legs, Robert was forced off the medicine that managed it as the VA weaned hundreds of thousands of veterans off their prescriptions. He called it "a death sentence for people like me," and took the VA to federal court to fight for his care. One of countless veterans cut off after they served.
