the.com/wonder drug
A miracle until the side-effect list grows longer than the benefit.
means A medicine hailed as a near-miraculous cure, often before its long-term risks are fully known.
from Straightforward compound coinage from 'wonder' (something that provokes amazement) plus 'drug,' rising in American press usage in the early-to-mid 20th century as newspapers hyped breakthroughs like sulfa drugs, penicillin, and later antibiotics — the phrase was journalism's shorthand for medical marvels before it curdled into something half-admiring, half-suspicious.
- origin era
- term exploded with 1940s penicillin hype
- marketing trick
- wonder usually means underfunded long-term testing
- sobering pattern
- today's wonder drug is tomorrow's lawsuit commercial
- real winners
- vaccines, insulin, aspirin quietly outperform the hype