snake oil

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A popular term for any substance claimed—without substantive evidence—to effectively treat one or more medical conditions

snake oil

A general informal term for a fraudulent PANACEA.

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References in periodicals archive ?

The Los Angeles Unified School District is run by an inept political machine and a dedicated snake-oil salesman, Roy Romer.

PUBLIC FORUM THE ELECTED CLUB

MICHAEL Howard increasingly resembles a snake-oil salesman.

The sight of supposedly Tory big hitters such as Oliver Letwin, David Cameron, George Osbourne and the snake-oil salesman himself squirming was strangely enjoyable.

Kevin Maguire: Oily Howard can't con us

We have a snake-oil salesman with a $432 million budget deficit who feels justified hiring hundreds of highly paid and unnecessary administrative cronies and lawyers.

PUBLIC FORUM THEIR PRIORITIES

That is the real nightmare of the computer revolution - not cloning, not that snake-oil pop-up-ad pitch that drove the Internet bubble of the 1990s.

REAL MONSTER MAY LURK IN YOUR PC

Doctors and researchers consulted for this story agreed that medical research should be considered a ``work in progress'' and that anybody claiming to possess a guaranteed silver-bullet treatment might simultaneously be earning a paycheck in the snake-oil trade.

CONTRA-INDICATIONS EXAMINE HEALTH CLAIMS CAREFULLY, ESPECIALLY IF THEY SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Unlike the old-fashioned snake-oil treatments, the comb has actually been approved under FDA guidelines for cosmetic use; a FDA medical approval as a hair-growth product is pending.

PULSE

Tonight's episode takes an obvious and uninspired shot at Aryan groups, while a future episode looks at snake-oil salesmen, but neither convincingly puts the situations in the appropriate dire-seeming context.

THE END OF THE WORLD AS AN AFTER-RAVE PARTY

In our age of instant media, error and sophistry can spread over the airwaves with the breathtaking speed of a prairie fire, snarling the gullible with an effectiveness that would be the envy of any snake-oil salesman.