Inert medications, part spurious to begin with, having boron and oxygen (8)
I believe the answer is:
placebos
'inert medications' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'begin with having boron and oxygen' is the wordplay.
'begin' becomes 'places' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'with having' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'boron' becomes 'B' (synonyms).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'oxygen' becomes 'O' (atomic symbol for oxygen).
'b'+'o'='bo'
'places' placed around 'bo' is 'PLACEBOS'.
'part spurious to' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for placebos that I've seen before include "Inert medications, given in drug trials" , "Blase cop offering dummy cures" , "Medications with no medicinal content" , "Inactive drugs" , "Physically inactive medicines" .)