https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/blog/working-to-stop-...

Also:

> Willis: Is it safe to say that anything that cannot be patented has been shut down intentionally because there's no way to profit from it, all these natural remedies that we have had forever?

> Mikovits: Absolutely, that's fair to say.

While obviously there are abuses from time to time (if you want a good example, check out the history of leaded gasoline :-| ), what she's saying is absolutely crazy. You're not going to cure cancer with "natural remedies". You're not going to cure Alzheimers with "natural remedies". That alone is enough to discredit the source.

You don't even need to go too deep into character assassination, it's blatant that she's an untrustworthy source if you actually do some research, instead of going on gut feelings.

I can't believe I'm having this discussion on HN...

It does not sound like she made a claim regarding the efficacy of natural remedies rather questioning the default labeling of non profitable treatments as pseudoscientific junk.

Did you actually watch the video?

As a rational person with a fair understanding of how business, markets and law work, I find it hard to believe that any party would intentionally create, or release the coronavirus for financial or political gain when there are other, easier and less damaging ways to achieve the same goal. The pandemic has ripple effects on pretty much every domain in the market and any short-term gain (let’s say for pharma or PPE) companies would be wiped out by the negative consequences (imagine you were a company producing PPE among other things, your PPE profits would explode but then your “other things” profits would collapse for several years while the expenses of the production line for those other things would still pile up).

When it comes to the idea that it was an act of war from China, they too were affected very badly to a point where I don’t believe it was a worthwhile tradeoff, thus discounting this possibility.

There have indeed been mistakes committed during the response to the pandemic including by the WHO (especially around their advice with regards to face masks), however I believe these were due to incompetence rather than any malicious intent.