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!”
The message might have sounded like gibberish to outside readers. But in this corner of the internet, where conspiracy theories and alternative health practices run wild, it suggested something barely short of a miracle: the arrival of a much-hyped device that followers think could treat aggressive cancer.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.
Some companies are capitalizing on the sudden demand. Julie, the woman advertising her husband’s med bed treatment in QAnon chat groups, is not an impartial med bed fan, but a marketer for Tesla BioHealing, one of multiple companies selling what they describe as “med beds,” sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars. The company credits its technology to a doctor who has previously been accused by the Federal Trade Commission of misleading advertisements for asthma treatments, and whose previous company board issued a resolution accusing him of sabotage, forgery, and sending company money to an online girlfriend.
The med bed conspiracy theory “serves two prophetic purposes,” said Sara Aniano, a Monmouth University graduate student who studies the rhetoric of the far right and has documented the spread of the med bed myth.
One of those prophecies promises a near future in which big pharmaceutical companies are obsolete. “Then of course there’s the more obvious appeal of having a magical machine, versions of which can diagnose you instantly or heal you instantly,” Aniano told The Daily Beast. “Some can grow back missing body parts instantly. So obviously, there’s a lot of hope that serves a very appealing narrative for those who believe this.”
Some QAnon sects have made med beds central to their conspiratorial claims. A Dallas-based group, which follows the Q influencer Michael “Negative 48” Protzman, has promoted med beds, in part because the devices address a plot hole in another conspiracy theory. 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.
Romana Didulo, a QAnon-adjacent conspiracy leader who claims to be the rightful “queen” of Canada, has also hyped med beds. The devices “will be made available for FREE to all Canadians” following her revolution, she wrote in an August post. Followers of YamatoQ, a Japan-based QAnon movement, have also latched onto med bed theories, even making their own attempted version of the device with copper wires.
Some conspiracy theorists believe Trump is aware of med beds, and can release them to the public. Delays in the prophesied technology (like one frustrated Q fan noted in an open letter to Trump last year) have led some to speculate that Trump is reserving the devices for the most critical cases, and for military members.
Companies selling self-described “med beds” often stop short of conspiracy theorists’ most unlikely claims.
Tesla BioHealing doesn’t claim that its “medbed generators” can regrow missing body parts—and its med beds are not even beds, but metal canisters designed to be placed under a mattress. Nevertheless, the Delaware-based company recommends its products for a spectrum of conditions, ranging from “mild” (including asthma and autism) to “severe” (including “terminal cancers”).
Reached for comment about Tesla BioHealing’s benefits for people with “severe” conditions, CEO James Liu told The Daily Beast that the devices delivered “life force energy” to those patients.
“Tesla BioHealing products provide life force energy to the user. When anyone with an unmet severe condition, such as ‘terminal cancers’ and ‘stroke-paralysis’ for 6 months, they do not have much life force energy, and it is hard for them to get better,” Liu told The Daily Beast via email. He cited studies, which Tesla BioHealing has not yet published.
“Based on the feedbacks of the users who had the similar condition, and they got the satisfactory use-experience (the real-world evidence), we do recommend to test-use our product. If the products were not work for the user, she/he can return within 60 days. We also conducted preliminary studies and we did observe the benefits of using our products. We are in the process to publish those studies. In addition, many doctors in the USA and abroad conducted the clinical studies. The outcomes of those independent studies are supporting the real-world evidence. The testimonials were directly provided by the real users in the USA and worldwide.”
Even for “mild” treatments, the price tag is staggering. For these conditions, the company recommends one “Adult BioHealer,” which costs $599. For severe cancers, like the one Julie’s husband battled, the company recommends “2 or more MedBed Generators,” which cost $19,999. (Julie’s husband’s treatment, which consisted of a MedBed Generator and four Adult BioHealers, would have cost $22,358).
Liu said prospective customers had approached them about conspiratorial claims, and that Tesla BioHealing had distanced itself from the theory.
“We were asked by many potential consumers if our products could be that kind [of] device, or similar to that hoax device,” Liu told The Daily Beast via email. “We have 100% distanced our products from that false claim. Because the bed is the right place for the user to gain life force energy to be able to heal her/his body, we use the bed to deliver our life force energy. When we communicated with the FDA, we used the term of bed, med bed, powered bed, etc. Any bed used in a hospital is a med bed. Those beds have no life force energy. Our life force energy empowered bed is unique.”
If Julie had promoted conspiracy theories, it would violate the company’s policies, Liu said.
Reached for comment, Julie told The Daily Beast that she purchased the devices “for my husband’s Stage 3 parotid (salivary gland) cancer, inoperable and aggressive which he was diagnosed with May 5th 2021. At that time I had a feeling that Medbeds existed and i searched until i found Tesla Biohealing on May 30th.”
She said that she hoped “AI medbeds” will become available in the future, but will continue to use her Tesla BioHealing products for pain and other conditions in the meantime. “Cancer was the best thing to happen to my husband and I. It was tough for both of us but we made it through,” she wrote. “Tesla Biohealing was and still is the best intuition I ever listened to in my life.”
Other supposed med bed companies make even loftier claims. A Swiss company called 90.10, which scored the coveted URL “medbed.com,” claims to allow users to access “infinite energy” and “reprogram your DNA”—all without side effects.
Unlike Tesla BioHealing, 90.10 doesn’t even offer users the tangibility of a metal can. Instead, it purports to convert users’ regular beds into the fabled med beds, using “Faster than Light Technology®” to “teleport or beam quantum energy and frequencies into the human body without time delay.”
Never mind that those claims appear to violate conventionally accepted rules of physics—the company promotes testimonials from customers who claim that one sleep in their invisibly upgraded bed managed to realign a spine, clear sinuses, cure joint pain, and helped reveal a person’s purpose in life.
Aniano, the Monmouth University researcher, had a slightly less revelatory experience with the device after signing up for 90.10’s eight-hour free trial.
“It tells you to lay on your bed and say the magic words, which I think are like ‘90.10 med bed, scan me,’ or something,” Aniano recalled. “You’re supposed to feel something, and that’s the trial.”
The 90.10 med bed sells for €2,358, just over $2,500. (“Shipping calculated at checkout,” reads the product page, although, elsewhere on its website, 90.10 clarifies that “we do not ship physical goods.”)
Reached for comment, 90.10 CEO Oliver Schacke said the devices were not medical in nature. Instead, he said, the beds have “the purpose of transporting quantum energy into the body.”
Schacke said he was unaware of conspiracy theories about med beds, and that his company’s product was not named after them. He reiterated his website’s claims that 90.10 products can instantly understand any language or dialect, and that they access infinite energy. “On the subject of unlimited energy,” he said in an email, “Whatever is possible to imagine, is possible to achieve.”
Though they might “recommend” their products for a variety of ailments, Tesla BioHealing and 90.10 sound a different note in their legal disclaimers.
90.10’s disclaimer clarifies that its “med bed” is short for “meditation bed” and that the product “is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It was also not developed for these purposes.”
Tesla BioHealing products, meanwhile, “are not intended to replace your physicians' care, diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition,” the company’s disclaimer states. It goes on to note that “[n]o claims are made that Tesla BioHealing products or services are diagnostic of the presence or absence of any medical conditions, nor are any claims made that Tesla BioHealing products are a cure or treatment for any medical condition or disease.”
While 90.10 is not U.S.-based, and notes that its products have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Tesla BioHealing advertises its med beds as “FDA registered medical devices.”
An FDA listing shows that Tesla BioHealing is a trade name of Liu’s company “DrNaturalHealing, Inc.” While that company has registered a number of devices like an “air flotation” mattress and a therapeutic infrared lamp, it does not appear to have registered the metal “MedBed Generator” cans.
Liu, a Delaware-based doctor and entrepreneur, has previously run afoul of regulatory agencies for allegedly misrepresenting his health products.
In 2014, he and DrNaturalHealing Inc. were the subject of a Federal Trade Commission investigation, over the company’s claims about an anti-asthma device. According to an FTC letter to Liu, DrNaturalHealing had advertised a “homeopathic spray” that purportedly “prevent[ed] or reduce[d] the occurrence of asthma attacks.” The FTC investigation found that the product’s claims were unsubstantiated. Because Liu agreed to stop making those claims, and because the product had not sold well to begin with, the FTC did not recommend Liu for enforcement.
“The FTC staff expects that DrNaturalHealing will ensure that all its health benefit claims are adequately substantiated in the future,” the agency letter read.
The matter appears to have concluded quietly, and Liu noted to The Daily Beast that the FTC had investigated his company and “did not fine us a single penny.” More dramatic, however, was a protracted legal feud between Liu and some of his former business partners, including his estranged wife.
After their split, the couple battled over ownership of TechWorld Corporation, a medical device company they had run together. In an April 2015 shareholder meeting, Liu’s ex and a group of TechWorld shareholders issued a resolution accusing Liu of a variety of misconducts, including “forg[ing] TWC’s president’s signature and open[ing] a TWC bank account,” “embezzl[ing] TWC’s money several times to his online date mate,” “purchas[ing] mal-functional products from his brother’s company which caused big business loss and damag[ing] TWC’s reputation,” getting TWC’s product barcode suspended, trying to transfer TWC’s barcode registration to DrNaturalHealing Inc., and “hijack[ing] his ex-wife’s business email.
The shareholders voted to boot Liu from the board, and requested he return the $35,050 that he had allegedly sent to an online girlfriend. Liu, in a separate legal battle against his ex, claimed that the explosive shareholder meeting had been convened illegally. He also denied the allegations, including misappropriating company funds, and claimed to have been scammed by “an online-dating criminal lady” on Match.com.
“A very skillful online dating criminal group targeted Dr. Liu by saying to invest a big money into TWC or buy the US business,” reads a legal filing in his case. It goes on to state that he “reported the full event to the IRS auditors and it was classified by the IRS officers as a true business loss in seeking for business investment.”
The bank account dispute, he said, came when he attempted to open a TWC account to cash in on a $100 offer for new account-holders.
Liu’s estranged wife did not comment for this article by press time.
Today, TechWorld’s business registry status is listed as “revoked.” Instead, Tesla BioHealing is expanding. The company has a fanbase in Japan, and a Japanese-language website. Stateside, the company has opened a number of “Tesla MedBed Centers,” where customers can schedule “a Bio-Well Energy Scan, Hourly or Overnight Tesla MedBed sessions. Experience for yourself why so many are sharing their remarkable stories with us.”
The company’s website advertises one such center “coming after May 2022” in Illinois, and it recently opened another in a former Days Inn in Pennsylvania.
As with Julie’s posts in the QAnon Telegram group, the site does not explicitly reference popular conspiracist claims about med beds. On a Facebook announcement about the new center, locals simply filled in the blanks with med bed conspiracy theories.
“Oh yes, but will not be available to the general public for about 2 yrs,” one reader commented on a Pennsylvania news station’s post about the upcoming med bed center. “The sickest, stricken military and children first.”
