The medbed thing is tied to the “quantum” craze & UFOs as climate contrarianism conspiracy theories about alien technology that will soon provide limitless energy that will solve climate change.
This is the ultimate nonsense product promoted in the pandemic. The first time I really heard about it I think was on the BBC Trending podcast. And I just saw people referencing medbeds on social media before I found out that Donald Trump himself was bleating out AI generated misinformation on social media. I’m sure somebody out there is giddy about that bit of bonkers horrendous.
BBC Trending December 18, 2022 Med beds: Miracle cure or misinformation?
The truth about ‘medbeds’ – a miracle cure that doesn’t exist 26 December 2022 Mike Wendling BBC News, East Dubuque The idea of medbeds – short either for “medical beds” or “meditation beds” – has become increasingly popular on fringe medical channels, on mainstream social networks and chat apps. But people have very different ideas about what they actually are. Some insist that the technology is secret, unlikely to be encountered by mere mortals, hidden from the public by billionaires and the “deep state”. The more conspiratorial theorising includes speculation about “alien technology” and bizarre claims like the idea that John F Kennedy is still alive, strapped to a medbed. A separate, more earthly avenue of thought holds that medbeds are very real and publicly available, just not part of the medical mainstream. It’s this strand that Tesla BioHealing and a range of other companies are staking their rather expensive claims on. Tesla BioHealing offers home generators for prices up to $19,999 (£16,500), although an hour in one of their medbed motel rooms will only set you back $160 (£130). But even in the consumer-focused medbed world, where there is no talk of aliens or JFK, there’s disagreement about what a medbed actually is. And there’s a very good reason for that, says Sara Aniano, a disinformation analyst at the Anti Defamation League’s Centre on Extremism. “It’s really hard to define something that doesn’t exist,” she says.
I feel like to call medbeds pseudoscience would be sanewashing. But people are selling products and services called medbeds, that part is real it’s just that the treatment is not real. Quackery is common, but this is really out there even for that.
The whole medbed thing is tied to the “quantum” craze and the UFO focused climate contrarianism. The false idea is promoted in conspiracy theories about alien technology already having arrived and being developed by the government (or someone) that will provide limitless energy that will solve climate change. This benefits fossil fuel because the message is basically don’t worry, don’t make laws, don’t do anything different, because the fossil fuel use will stop just in the nick of time because there’s this advanced technology that’s about to burst on the scene. (Even though just in time passed awhile back.) And then the medbeds came along in the pandemic, and the idea being that the cure all alien technology means people don’t need to avoid covid, don’t need vaccines or real treatments. This benefits fossil fuel and the industries who didn’t want the economy “shut down” or to have people disengaging or working from home and not commuting, so on and so forth. So the money is pretty much probably why despite being so outlandish these things get some real traction in the media and on social media, and get attention from Republican politicians, like the UFO hearings, and the journalists who seem to be very well off and much boosted despite covering fringe topics and interviewing people most would consider cranks.