vitamin P
n.— «Considering her own history of depression—Vincent had been taking “Vitamin P” (better known as Prozac) for years—she anticipated her mental health might suffer.» —“Norah Vincent spent a year disguised as a man for her last book but the experience put her in a mental institution…cue follow-up” by Chitra Ramaswamy Scotland on Sunday (Glasgow) Jan 25, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If something pales in comparison to something else, the reference is to its intensity decreasing next to something even brighter. The pale in this case is unrelated to the one in beyond the pale, which has to do with territory marked by a literal...
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant look into the myriad stories behind the word cocktail. Does the drink name come from feathers? Horses? Something up a horse’s rump? It’s a weird wandering down etymology lane… This minicast...
I’ve heard the expression “Vitamin P” (= Prozac) since 1998 or so, mostly from Lilly pharmaceutical sales reps. Can you imagine the status a drug thought of as almost like a vitamin would achieve, especially for the company’s marketing department? I suspect that may have been where the reference originated as well. But of course that is pure conjecture…