nostrum

A medicine or remedy in conventional use which has not been proven to have any desirable medical effects.

Near-synonyms: paternoster, patent medicine, snake oil

Nay, he would sometimes retire hither to take his beer, and it was not without difficulty that he was prevented from forcing Jones to take his beer too: for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea than he did this; which, he said, had more virtue in it than was in all the physic in an apothecary's shop.

An ineffective but favorite remedy for a problem, usually involving political action.

reformers of church charities [...made] known […] their different nostrums for setting Hiram's Hospital on its feet again.

And not because some clatch of bureaucrats in Strasbourg or Luxembourg have issued yet another directive, but because Europeans are recognising that 19th century nostrums are not solutions to 21st century problems—on the contrary, they are the problem—and it's time to encourage competition, risk taking, democracy and meritocracy, and, dare I say it, dreaming about a different, better future.