No one should be misled into buying unregulated supplements or altering their prescribed therapies because a healthcare professional on social media promised a miracle built around a discount code.

I am Savannah Sparks. As a content creator, PharmD, and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), I use my platform to expose deceptive health claims online. Everyday consumers deserve honest, evidence-based information about what they put in their bodies. Unfortunately, the rise of medical influencer marketing has turned public health into a predatory marketplace.

Licensed healthcare professionals (including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists) are leveraging their clinical credentials to promote unregulated dietary supplements and dangerous medical practices. We are watching influencers use buzzwords like "nature's Ozempic" or "GLP-1 support" to borrow the clinical credibility of proven medications to sell unverified alternatives. Worse, some licensed providers are openly advocating for the unapproved micro-dosing of prescription medications, falsely claiming their advice is evidence-based.

The danger is real. Patients are substituting actual prescriptions with unverified supplements or following dangerous, unstudied dosing regimens suggested in their feeds. A dynamic following does not place an online creator above professional ethics or federal law.

The Food and Drug Administration generally does not review supplement labeling claims before they go to market. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission requires reliable scientific evidence for health claims and clear disclosures of financial sponsorships. However, consumer protection shouldn't rely entirely on the public playing detective. When licensed professionals violate these rules, they violate the public trust.

We must enforce tougher rules and explicit penalties for healthcare providers who engage in deceptive, unscientific marketing.

We call on FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, American Medical Association (AMA) President Dr. Willie Underwood III, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) President Dr. Nicki Chopski, and the leadership of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) to take coordinated action. We ask these agencies and professional bodies to:

-Enforce and penalize disclosure failures: The FTC and state boards must strictly enforce affiliate and paid-partnership rules, imposing professional licensing penalties on healthcare providers who hide commercial conflicts of interest.

-Crack down on unscientific marketing: The FDA and FTC must target medical creators using misleading clinical jargon to imply that a product offers the same or better medical outcomes as evidence-based interventions.

-Establish strict board standards: The FSMB, NCSBN, and NABP alongside respective state Boards must issue clear guidelines establishing that promoting non-evidence-based therapies or unapproved dosing strategies online constitutes professional misconduct subject to board discipline.

-Mandate corrective disclosures: Require creators who spread misleading medical claims to post prominent, verified corrections to inform their audiences of the actual scientific data.

Sign and share this petition to demand that federal regulators and licensing boards hold medical influencers accountable. Your medical choices should be governed by rigorous scientific evidence, not by a creator's discount code or follower count.