CANDICE: Welcome to Cracker Croakers for Tuesday, January 15, 2019. I'm Candice Bergeron, your hostess with the mostest.

COLTON: And, I'm your other host Colton Wyatt.

CANDICE: News flash, Colton! Thirty billion dollars. That was the astronomical amount of money recently spent in one year for five million television, newspaper, and online advertisements. Take a wild guess what these ads were for.

COLTON: Medicines, medical devices, health tests, and hospitals. Most of these were consumer-based ads but marketing to doctors and healthcare providers is also big money.

CANDICE: A vast majority of these ads paid for free drug samples. Why? Because marketing drives more testing and medical treatments that oftentimes patients do not require.

COLTON: This analyzed data comes from the Food and Drug Administration, as well as medicine and medical research.

CANDICE: A spiraling upward trend in medical advertising suggests consumers need to remain skeptical about the flood of marketing claims they are subjected to.

COLTON: Interestingly, an American Medical Association Journal entry reports medical marketing does not need to apologize since it has benefitted consumers by making them more informed.

CANDICE: This same journal entry attempts to shift the blame, and the responsibility, when it further states it is doctors who need to help their patients understand what these products claim. The report goes on to express more doctors need to be better educated about deceptive marketing.

COLTON: One-third of the dollars spent on medical marketing targeted consumers directly. Did you know Candice, the United States is one of only two countries in the world to allow prescription medicine advertising?

CANDICE: The amount of money spent on disease-awareness ads more than doubled to 401 campaigns. Of course, drug names were not mentioned in these ads. But, manufacturers of medicines frequently use these ads to "sell" exotic diseases that must be treated by their costly new products. A Catch-22 if ever there was one.

COLTON: Advertising directed at doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers increased to about two-thirds of the dollars spent on advertising. And, amazingly, some 12 billion dollars was allocated for free drug samples.

CANDICE: Doctors with financial connections to drug makers and medical device manufacturers are listed on the federal government's Open Payment's website. How many of our audience members were aware of that juicy little tidbit? By 2022, this listing is scheduled to expand to include nurses with advanced training and physician assistants.

COLTON: Federal laws require all advertisements to be truthful and backed by scientific evidence. The Federal Trade Commission regulates over-the-counter products, and the Food and Drug Administration oversees prescription drug and medical device ads. The question I have regarding this situation is how closely do they really oversee these advertisements?

CANDICE: Well if you asked me I'd say that spotty oversight by both agencies appears to be in play according to this recently released study. It further cites as an example FDA violation letters for misleading drug marketing dropped to eleven incidents.

COLTON: Eleven incidents? C'mon! Could that possibly mean FDA regulators are so overwhelmed by all these new ads they can not keep up with the volume of the barrage?

CANDICE: On the other hand, FDA violation letters for the marketing of unapproved genetic tests has increased resulting in eleven billion dollars in fines for off-label or deceptive marketing ads.

COLTON: The American Medical Association has previously supported a ban on direct-to-consumers advertising for prescription medicines.

CANDICE: The AMA also states doctors should not accept gifts or payments from the medical industry in an effort to influence their prescribing habits. That about wraps us up for this edition of Cracker Croakers.

COLTON: In that case smarty-pants, I suppose we better say adieu. She's Candice!

CANDICE: And, he's Colton!

CANDICE AND COLTON: And, we invite you to join us again tomorrow for another entertaining edition of Cracker Croakers (Featuring Candice and Colton).