Outline
Circulating ‘news’ report claims that America’s FDA has approved the release of anaesthetic dart guns designed to calm children with ADHD.
Brief Analysis
The claims in the report are nonsense. The story is a work of fiction that comes from the fake-news ‘satire’ website World News Daily Report. None of the reports published on the site are real news and they should not be taken seriously.
Example
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.
Detailed Analysis
According to this circulating report, America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the release of new anaesthetic dart guns that can be used on children who suffer from ADHD.
Supposedly, darts from the guns, which the report claims have a range of 10 to 12 feet, can put a child to sleep within 4 seconds and last for 4 to 6 hours per dose. The report claims that the guns have been specifically created to assist parents of children with ADHD.
But, thankfully, the claims in the report are utter nonsense. Of course, no such tranquilizing dart guns have been approved.
In fact, the story is just a work of fiction published by the fake-news website World News Daily Report (WNDR). The site includes the following disclaimer:
WNDR assumes however 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 persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.
Although they may resemble genuine news articles at first glance, none of the stories published on WNDR should be taken seriously. World News Daily Report has been responsible for a string of absurd fake-news stories that have gone viral in recent months.
The tranquillizing dart gun story has also been published on various other fake-news and ‘viral story’ websites, which, unfortunately, give the material even greater reach.
An alternative version of the story omits references to ADHD children and claims that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is set to produce the dart guns.
The image if the dart guns used in the fake report also appears on the website of Dutch design studio Groendijk.
If any strange or unusual ‘news’ story crosses your social media feeds or inboxes, it is a good idea to check its veracity before you share it with others. Generally, a search via an online news portal will quickly reveal if a circulating story is false.
Of course, if the tranquilizing dart gun story were true, it would have been given a great deal of attention by the mainstream media.
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
