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 challenges your clients face are complex and difficult, which means preparing yourself to earn their trust and offer the right advice is even "complexer" and "difficulter." No, it's not easy, but commit to doing the hard work while your competition stands around rubbing the snake oil wherever it is you're supposed to apply snake oil.
Snake oil by any other name..
Determining whether the app has accurate information and can be trusted (or whether it's modern-day snake oil) is the difficult part.
Helping consumers navigate the wild world of health apps
Premiere of this Arlene Bogna Film, The Ballad of Snake Oil Sam, took place on May 31st, 2014 at Dances With Films Festival in the Chinese Theater, Hollywood, California.
Indie Film by LA Female Director Embarks on Global Film Festival Tour from Its Debut at Cannes, LA, Madrid to New Hope, PA
Devotees who flock to Quiapo church for the Black Nazarene procession listen as Boyet De Guzman demonstrates the "healing effect" of his product snake oil. (Ron B.
Feast makes brisk business for Quiapo vendors
It occurred to me that education, particularly since No Child Left Behind, has more than its fair share of modern-day snake oil salespeople.
On grifters, research, and poverty
The snake oil industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which caused commercial depletion of this and other rattlesnake species, is explored in Chapter 5, as is the recent and disturbing demand for poisonous snakes in the pet trade.
Timber Rattlesnakes in Vermont and New York: Biology, History and the Fate of and Endangered Species
From snake oil to medicine; pioneering public health.
From snake oil to medicine; pioneering public health
EasyJet to buy UN-backed carbon credits The carbon-offset market is riddled with "snake oil salesmen" hoping to glean profits from green-minded travelers, according to EasyJet.
Travel Health & Environment Watch
They also demand that snake oil be included in chemistry classes.
Friend or foe
The regulation of medical practice has important benefits, including being charged with protecting the citizenry from charlatans, hucksters, and various sellers of snake oil. However, a narrow, biased, or uninformed interpretation of charlatanism by state medical boards can increase the risk that citizens will be denied access to the kind of healthcare they desire.
Technology aside: the state of healthcare
There maybe such buyers of snake oil in rich countries, but developing country practitioners know better.
Today's golden age of poverty reduction: the story the world bank and other agencies don't want you to know
Kids may learn to be a little less gullible when they read of the journalists, kings, famous Americans like Franklin and Lincoln, generals and snake oil salesmen who have deliberately tricked people into believing falsehoods for sometimes good, sometimes evil, and often financial ends.
Farquhar, Michael. A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers and Extraordinary True Stories of History's Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes and Frauds

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