Hydroxychloroquine and medbeds

Trump has found a brand new way to discourage his fans, particularly elderly ones, to seek out actual healthcare while also giving them false hope:

“I know in my heart that med beds [sic] are real,” a woman named Pam wrote recently on Truth Social, the social media site owned by Trump Media and Technology Group, and President Donald Trump’s favorite place to post. “I’ve been hoping and at the same time thinking it’s too good to be true,” Pam confided. “But Trump is giving me back my hope.”

Over the weekend, Trump posted an AI-generated video on the platform that touted purported “medbeds,” a non-existent healing technology that people falsely believe will miraculously cure all maladies. In the video, a robotic-sounding Lara Trump is seen heading a Fox News segment about medbeds, as footage of a fake Donald Trump proclaims, in part, “Every American will soon receive their own medbed card. With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”

Trump deleted the video without comment a few hours later. But even after it was taken down, his Truth Social followers—who are among his most devoted fans—took the post as a sign that medbeds are about to be unveiled. They speculated about why the video had been deleted (one theory was that it had too many comments) and assured each other that the technology was indeed on its way. 

“I’ve been dreaming about this healing tool for a long time,” one woman wrote. “I hope a ticket for me and my husband. [sic] Healing frequency and advancing healing technology is possible.” 

“All citizens will get a card,” another wrote, “And I’m sure the waitlist will take the most acute first.” 

All of this, of course, is a lie. “The medbed fantasy isn’t new,” says Jonathan Jarry, a science communicator at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. “The promise is always that this fantastical technology will be rolled out tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.”

Medbeds are just one outright fake or dubious health technology being promoted by Truth Social accounts. Truth Social users skew older and generally have a great deal of faith in Trump—demographics that suggest a less sophisticated approach to evaluating online claims. The site has become fertile ground for false or contested health claims, with Truth Social users often proclaiming the miraculous healing benefits of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which have been heavily promoted as fake Covid cures. On a recent day, for instance, a user calling herself “Oksana Trump” with 143,000 followers—a massive number for the site—shared a post about Florida’s plans to investigate ivermectin and other generic drugs as cancer treatments. Her replies were full of Truth Social users proclaiming they already had used the drug to treat cancer, instead of chemotherapy or other scientifically-backed options. Truth Social users also frequently promote or even provide links to places to buy what is called “vitamin B17,” a longstanding fake cancer cure often derived from apricot seeds, as well as “Indian black salve,” a product that falsely claims to cure skin cancer. The FDA warns that using black salve can result in disfigurement and infection while delaying actual treatment. 

A population that is aging and addicted to social media is particularly vulnerable to baroque scams, and nobody is as focused on scamming people than the current president.