Did the FDA just approve a new line of tranquilizing darts for children? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian entertainment website that makes a living by publishing fictional stories often involving weird crimes, bizarre sex acts or strange accidents. It is not real. The story is several years old but went viral again for some reason in May 2019.
The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on May 9, 2015 titled "FDA Approves New Tranquilizing Darts for Children" (archived here) which opened:
Washington | The FDA announced this morning it gave its approval for the marketing release of their new anesthetic dart guns, specifically designed to calm children suffering from ADHD.
The new product is capable of putting a child to sleep in less than 4 seconds and reportedly has no serious long-term effects on the health of children.These new tools specifically created to assist parents with children suffering from ADHD have a practical range of approximately 10 to 12 feet (3 to 4 meters) and their effect is meant to last for a period of 4 to 6 hours per injection.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
FDA Approves New Tranquilizing Darts for Children
Washington | The FDA announced this morning it gave its approval for the marketing release of their new anesthetic dart guns, specifically designed to calm children suffering from ADHD. The new product is capable of putting a child to sleep in less than 4 seconds and reportedly has no serious long-
The website World News Daily Report is a humor website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
On March 20, 2019 the site added a new header that included the slogan "Where facts don't matter" to make it clearer to casual visitors the published content is fictional:
The site often uses images stolen without attribution from real news websites, sometimes showing real people who have nothing to do with the story, for example here:
Woman Says Newborn Photo Stolen for Satirical Fake News Story
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Retired CIA Agent Did NOT Confess on Deathbed He Killed Marilyn Monroe
- Fake News: 91-Year-Old Catholic Nun Did NOT Auction Her Virginity To Rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in France
- Fake News: Kenya: Authorities Did NOT Release Barack Obama's 'Real' Birth Certificate
- Fake News: Man Did NOT Fake Being Deaf and Dumb for 62 Years to Avoid Listening to Wife
- Fake News: British Man Did NOT Sleep With Hundreds of Girls by Passing Himself off as Prince Harry
