medbed
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Medbeds made the news on 27 September when Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video to his Truth Social account that depicted a fake Fox News story, purportedly reported by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump. Trump’s post was taken down hours later. The clip featured an AI-generated version of himself (of course) announcing that medbeds would soon be available to all Americans. You can see an MSNBC report that includes the video here.
A medbed is a miraculous, and of course entirely fictional, technology that can diagnosis and heal any disease, reverse the effects of aging, and even regrow limbs. Medbeds are a staple of QAnon conspiracy theorists.
Trump’s posting not only demonstrates his disassociation with reality, it also shows his disassociation with Republican policy in that it is purports to announce a form of socialized medicine. And, of course, various websites popped up following Trump’s posting offering to provide the promised medbed cards, for the low price of a few hundred dollars each.
The term medbed, also commonly spelled med bed and medibed, first appears in the mid-1970s in the sense of an ordinary hospital bed. Medbeds with hyper-advanced medical technology start appearing in science fiction in the late 1980s, and then move into conspiracy theory by 2020, fueled by panic over the COVID-19 pandemic.
The earliest use of medbed, in the form medibed, that I’m aware of is in a photo caption in the 20 June 1975 issue of the San Diego Union. The photo is, of course, of an ordinary hospital bed:
Charles Hall, a San Francisco engineer who developed the first waterbed, takes a look at one of the newer designs, a MediBed, at waterbed trade show.
Here is another early example, from the Charleston, South Carolina News & Courier of 31 October 1982 that seems to use medbed not for the literal bed itself, but for general accommodation of a hospital patient:
Say, I bet all you people out there in Patientland were joyed to hear that six of Palmettoland’s 10 most expensive hosps are located locally, with the average tab priced at $2,587.83_compared to $779 at Hampton General. Makes you ill to even think about it, huh?_Whatever, pls know that MUSC (the state’s most expensive medbed at $551 per day) didn’t pad your bill to buy that elegant $3,080 desk for Sec/Jim when he comes aboard soon as prez.
This nonfictional sense of medbed can frequently be seen in ads touting the sale of hospital beds for in-home patient use.
Science fiction use of medbeds with advanced technology is in place by 1987, when the term appears in Ron Golart’s novel Daredevils, Ltd.:
The Hungerford Brothers, Ted and Ned, were middle-aged toadmen. At the moment each was in traction in a floating multicare medbed.
And the imagined technology made the crossover from science fiction to conspiracy theory by late 2020. Here is an example reported by India’s Vishvas News on 11 December:
A post doing rounds on social media shows images of MedBeds, a type of body scanner. As per the claim, Medbeds can pick up any disease and cure it, in 2.5 minutes. It further claims that Medbeds works on Artificial Intelligence and works will a lot of intelligence [sic].
When Vishvas News investigated we found that the images shown in the viral post are taken from a 2013 movie “Elysium.” Also, no body scanner, so far, can cure a disease under 2.5 minutes as claimed in the post.
Elysium is a 2013 science fiction movie directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. In the film, however, the devices are called Med-Bays, a term that dates to at least 1970 when Damien Broderick uses it in his short story The Star Mutants:
The creature was still stupified [sic] from the shock A pair of guards made their way cautiously across the cooling jagged passageway, lugged the thing to medical bay for questioning. […] The resemblance to humanity was effectively destroyed by the distortions sheeting radiation had worked in its DNA. With the confines of the med bay, its stink was more of a throat-choking affront than ever.
And there is this from the Daily Beast of 22 April 2022 that associates medbeds with QAnon:
In a popular QAnon chat group, a woman named Julie was selling hope and a $22,000 cancer treatment.
For “those interested in medbeds,” she wrote in a 36,000-member QAnon group on the chat platform Telegram, “FYI My husband uses a #medbed generator and 4 tesla biohealers for his stage 3 inoperable and aggressive salivary gland tumor. THIS technology is very supportive!”
[…]
An increasingly popular conspiracy theory falsely centers around the existence of “med beds,” a fabled medical instrument that does everything from reversing aging to regrowing missing limbs. The theory has grown in popularity among followers of far-right movements like QAnon, some of whom claim to be urgently awaiting a med bed to treat severe health conditions.
“The group falsely believes that John F. Kennedy is still alive and youthful, and attributes his remarkable longevity to the curative powers of med beds.”
Outlandish conspiracy theories have always been with us, but this is the first time one has been touted by a president of the United States.
Sources:
Broderick, Damien. “The Star Mutants.” Vision of Tomorrow, 1.6, March 1970, 51–59 at 55. Archive.org.
Goulart, Ron. Daredevils, Ltd. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987, 12. Archive.org.
Hamrick, Tom. “One Man’s Charleston.” News & Courier—The Evening Post, Charleston (South Carolina), 31 October 1982, 4-E/1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Kapoor, Urvashi. “Fact Check: No, This Machine Cannot Cure a Disease in 2.5 Minutes.” Vishvas News, 11 December 2020.
O’Toole, Garson. “Re: [ADS-L] med bed.” American Dialect Society Email List (ADS-L), 5 October 2025.
Sheidlower, Jesse. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, 2 October 2025, s.v. medbed, n.
———. “Re: [ADS-L] med bed.” American Dialect Society Email List (ADS-L), 5 October 2025.
“Waterbeds Fight Sinking Feeling” (photo caption). San Diego Union (California), 20 June 1975, A-14/3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Weill, Kelly. “New QAnon Conspiracy Involves a Magical Bed for Zombie JFK.” Daily Beast, 22 April 2022. NewsBank: Access World News—Historical and Current.