Remember Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan? He was one of the foremost “experts” quoted by the Indian and international media to fearmonger about India staring at, potentially, “millions of deaths” during the COVID-19 pandemic. The insinuation at the time was simple – based on the comments of Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan, the media repeatedly speculated that the Indian government was hiding substantial information about COVID-19 deaths in India and vaccine penetration. Turns out, the campaign to tarnish the country and her seminal effort to contain the pandemic, largely driven by Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan, may have a USAID, NED, CDC, Dr Fauci and the vaccine lobby angle to it, hitherto unexplored.
After Elon Musk-led DOGE bit USAID, skeletons have been tumbling out of the US Deep State closet, from election interference to regime change operations, forced colour revolutions, colluding with terrorist organisations to destabilize sovereign countries, and collaborating with nefarious NGOs in several nations including India, furthering the LGBTQIA+ plus agenda of body mutilation, funding the religious conversion of indigenous people – Hindus in India, for example, and much more. It almost seems like there is a USAID-created monster lurking under every rock that one bothers to lift.
So how does it all link to Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan and the COVID-19 pandemic in India?
Who is Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan and how was he creating panic in India during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic was the worst health crisis that the world had experienced in decades and India was no exception. Governments across the world struggled to respond to the spread of the virus. The government of India, however, despite a less than adequate health infrastructure to deal with a global pandemic and a population of over 1.2 billion people, successfully curbed the spread. In fact, India not only managed to do a decent job for its own people but helped several other nations by supplying vaccines – this, at a time when the world was hoarding vaccines and medicines, leaving several smaller nations to fend for themselves.
While the Indian government put up a herculean fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, certain elements were fear-mongering and predicting millions of deaths in India – insinuating that the Indian government was hiding material evidence and facts about the deaths in India.
One of the foremost “experts” who peddled such theories was Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan. Ramanan Lakshminarayanan came up with fanciful numbers to state that India would be facing close to 300 million COVID-19 infections and 2.5 million deaths due to the coronavirus outbreak – and he was used by the Left media to spread panic in India.
By the 20th and 21st of March 2020, Laxminarayanan had spoken to several mainstream media channels. On India Today and Barkha Dutt’s YouTube channel, Lakshminarayan claimed that nearly 10-15 million people would be affected seriously and would need critical care ‘in the coming days’.
Many are saying these projected numbers by Ramanan Laxminarayan will cause panic. I disagree. I think him telling us that India could get 300 to 500 million #Corona cases by July is a call to action. It brings home gravity of what could happen if we don't isolate diligently https://t.co/Xumlwkwk6o
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) March 21, 2020
According to Ramanan Laxminarayanan, if mathematical models from the United States and the United Kingdom were applied to India, the country could be looking at 300 million COVID-19 infections.
“Most of the infections will be mild, however, 10 million severe infections will happen within the next two weeks and India does not have such intensive care facilities to handle such scale,” claimed Ramanan Lakshminarayanan in March 2020.
In a classic case of speculation, Ramanan Laxminarayanan said that India could be facing close to 2.5 million deaths. The so-called disease expert, however, failed to authenticate his numbers and did not reveal the source of data before inventing such fanciful numbers.
The Wire was not left behind, of course.
By September 2020, Ramanan Laxminarayanan was peddling fake news and fear-mongering yet again – this time – through Quint.
The article in The Quint claimed that the COVI-19 scourge in India was spreading like in no other country around the world and that India would “soon eclipse the outbreak in the U.S.” Secondly, it attempted to belittle the central government led by Narendra Modi by peddling the theory that a low mortality rate or a high recovery rate is a ‘useless statistic’. And to prove this, one of the “experts” it quoted was Ramanan Laxminarayanan.
NDTV and National Herald in March cited a study on COVID-19 done by The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in collaboration with John Hopkins University, US. The report claimed that the study has found that the ongoing 21-day national lockdown will not be able to contain the spread of COVID-19. There were only two problems with this report. Only 4 days before this report was released, CDDEP’s founder and director – Ramanan Laxminarayanan – was stressing the need for a national lockdown in an interview with Barkha Dutt. The second problem was that while Laxminarayanan claimed that the report was in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (evidenced by the logo on the research paper), JU came out and denied association with it.
To clarify: Faculty with appointments at @JohnsHopkinsSPH co-authored this report with @CDDEP and Princeton researchers. The report has been updated to clarify its authors affiliations and does not reflect the views of CDDEP, Johns Hopkins, or Princeton.https://t.co/QrFhRDq1Fs
— Johns Hopkins University (@JohnsHopkins) March 28, 2020
In 2021, after the worst phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was over, the New York Times published a table estimating millions of deaths and clearly claiming that the Modi government was lying about the casualties.
In the article, Ramanan Laxminarayanan confirms the outlandish accusation by the NYT, insinuating that the Modi government was indeed underreporting the deaths. This narrative was then used by several Congress leaders to target the Modi government.
While the Indian media gave Laxminarayanan unprecedented access to spread misinformation and fearmonger about the COVID pandemic in India, OpIndia realised that he was no doctor. He had done a PhD in Economics and had a Masters in Public Health (MPH). The MPH, for example, would make him suitable to weigh in on how India should build the capacity to store vaccines under suitable conditions, but certainly not predict deaths based on medical evidence.
Ramanan Laxminarayanan actually claims to be an economist and has worked for a not-for-profit organisation named the Public Health Foundation of India.
Ramanan Laxminarayan is also the founder and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP) in Washington DC, and also a senior research scholar and lecturer at the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University. His claims of being an economist are also disputable.
The Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), renamed to OneHealth Plus, and the USAID, CDC, and NED connection
In 2022, Ramanan Laxminarayanan announced that CDDEP was being renamed to OneHealth Plus. The announcement said:
“The One Health Trust (OHT) uses research and stakeholder engagement to improve the health and well-being of our planet and its inhabitants. OHT continues and builds on the work of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), which for more than a decade has conducted vitally important research on major global health challenges, including COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance, hospital infections, tuberculosis, malaria, pandemic preparedness and response, vaccines, medical oxygen shortages, and non-communicable diseases. OHT’s work now expands to take on issues related to climate change, biodiversity protection, and the effect of changing human diets on the planet”.
When one looks deeper, one realises that OneHealth Plus is funded by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organisation (WHO) and, of course, USAID.
Interestingly, in all their Form 990 returns with the IRS, they have marked their source of funds as “restricted”. OpIndia perused Form 990 of CCDEP till 2020 – and in all the returns – the source of funds was marked to be ‘restricted’.
However, they specify that they are an organisation that gets a substantial chunk of their funding from the government (In this case, it would be the US government – this could include the CDC and USAID funding).
In the year 2023, CCDEP, according to their Form 990 got $1.2 million are Government grants (contributions). The compensation drawn by Ramanan Laxminarayanan was $321,003.
In the year 2020, when he was spreading lies and misinformation in the name of COVID-19, he was drawing a salary of $286,150 and CCDEP got $771,534 in government grants (contributions).
Further, according to DataRepublican, CCDEP also got money from the National Endowment For Democracy (NED).
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private nonprofit grantmaking organization that supports the development of democratic institutions around the world. Though formally private, the NED is almost entirely funded by the U.S. Congress. Annually, the NED distributes more than 2,000 grants with an average value of $50,000 in more than 100 countries. NED is largely assumed to be an extended arm of the US Deep State which essentially works to fulfil USA’s foreign policy goals – much like the USAID and to bring about regime change operations. In fact, The left-wing Monthly Review Online has characterized the NED as “a CIA offshoot”, according to Influence Watch.
Mike Benz, a former intelligence officer who now exposes the functioning of the US deep state has long spoken about NED and its nefarious regime change operations. Recently, he spoke about how NED was instrumental in the regime change operation in Bangladesh.
USAID’s constant partner and operational companion star, NED, funded this Bangladesh rap song and music video, which it wrote to the US State Department “was designed… to build up disappointment and even dissent to government.” pic.twitter.com/XEnSntCfe0
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 7, 2025
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been leading the charge to defend USAID. Here he is listed as the main “Hill Outreach” point of contact for a USAID-funded NED program to “destabilize Bangladesh’s politics” by funding transgender dance festivals and Bangladeshi rap groups. pic.twitter.com/yElFZUrstX
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 7, 2025
In a 1986 article in the New York Times, Carl Gershman, the founder of the National Endowment For Democracy, made some startling revelations. He was the founding president of NED from 1984 to 2021.
He essentially said that the NED was formed because the US did not want to be seen as subsidizing programs around the world through the CIA – essentially – that the NED was a CIA proxy front. Further, he reveals that a list of potential recipients of NED grants is approved by the CIA before the grants are made.
Mike Benz has also claimed that USAID and NED sponsored several programs for election interference in India – to ensure the defeat of PM Modi. He said that NED worked to promote the narrative that PM Modi’s success was largely due to misinformation. Interestingly, Ramanan Laxminarayanan had also attempted to create the narrative that India’s COVID-19 success was a mere myth, that the recovery rate does not matter and that millions were dying in India – insinuating that the Modi govt was hiding the real numbers.
The PHFI-USAID connection
As mentioned earlier, Ramanan Laxminarayanan was working for an NGO called PHFI before he ventured on his own.
According to BJP leader Vijay Chauthaiwale, Laxminarayanan while working with PHFI in India, had launched two private companies without taking appropriate PHFI permission. Later, PHFI did not renew his contract in 2016 and also sued him for stealing the NGO’s intellectual property. Ramanan Laxminarayanan had also the lost case and had to return back the Intellectual property rights to the PHFI. The court even awarded legal costs to PHFI.
PFHI collaborates with the government in various fields, however, interestingly, it also partners with USAID.
It is possible that it is in PHFI that Laxminarayanan made his USAID connections and then, after his alleged ouster, set up his own network of NGOs primarily with USAID, NED, WHO, CDC and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding.
In addition to his role in the US-based NGO CDDEP, Laxminarayanan also ventured into commercial activities by starting a company called Health Cube, which according to him works in the area of diagnostics. Another venture set up by the so-called health expert is “Public Health Technologies Trust”.
The websites of both Health Cube and Public Health Technologies Trust suggest that Ramanan Laxminarayanan is in the business of health solutions. PHFT in its website claims to use state-of-the-art IT and systems design tools and technologies to empower the Indian population to obtain better health through the optimal use of technologies.
Connections with Dr Anthony Fauci
The earliest trace that OpIndia can find for now between Ramanan Laxminarayanan and Dr Anthony Fauci is from 2016. In 2016, Ramaman was invited by Dr Fauci for a John LaMontagne Memorial Lecture. The lecture is sponsored by NIAID and Dr. Fauci served as NIAID Director from 1984 to 2022.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, while he was fearmongering in India, spreading misinformation and panic, Ramanan posted a picture about his meeting with Dr Fauci and posted on LinkedIn about it, claiming that the meeting was one of the annual meetings he has with Fauci. In this post, he was clearly defending Dr Fauci against the allegations that were being mounted against him.
He has, since, posted pictures with Dr Fauci regularly.
The links to his LinkedIn posts can be accessed here, here and here.
After President Donald Trump took office, he withdrew the security of Anthony Fauci and DOGE, led by Elon Musk cancelled the grant for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit.
Dr Fauci has been the subject of much investigation after the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Fauci, during a senate hearing on May 11, 2021, had said under oath that the NIH never carried out gain-of-function research in Wuhan. However, he had, evidently, committed perjury.
An investigation by Project Veritas has made a shocking discovery regarding the origin of Covid-19, and the gain of function research to enhance the virus. Project Veritas has claimed to access ‘never before seen’ Department of Defence (USA) documents that show that the USA’s elite military research organisation DARPA (Defence Advanced Research and Projects Agency) had rejected a proposal by EcoHealth Alliance. The proposal that DARPA rejected was about studying bat-born Coronaviruses in Wuhan. However, the proposal that was rejected by DARPA saying it is ‘too dangerous’, was later approved by the USA’s NIAID, which is headed by Dr Anthony Fauci. The proposal was named ‘Project Defuse’. As per the Project Veritas report, DARPA had rejected the proposal saying that it would violate the ‘gain of function’ moratorium.
It is notable here that several reporters have revealed in the past that EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak was involved in conducting gain-of-function research into coronaviruses in WIV, China. Daszak was one of the first and foremost scientists to vocally dismiss the ‘lab leak’ theories. He had also published a very widely publicised letter in The Lancet at the beginning of the pandemic to dismiss all claims of ‘lab leak’.
Reports and documents had also revealed that Fauci’s NIAID had funded EcoHealth Alliance to carry out research in Wuhan.
Interestingly, Daszak was also a part of the WHO investigative team that had visited the WIV to study the origins of the Covid. Later, when Daszak’s old statements and videos emerged showing him admitting that his EcoHealth Alliance is indeed involved in the gain of function research at Wuhan, Daszak was dropped from the Lancet commission investigating Covid origins.
Somehow, the obvious conflict of interest has not been addressed by WHO or the respective governments of the USA and China so far.
A number of documents, letters and reports have so far emerged, showing the damning involvement of US scientists and bureaucrats in suppressing the truth about Covid origins.
Anthony Fauci, the head of NIAID and NIH, had stated in the past that the gain of function experiments into the virus was ‘worth the risk of a pandemic’.
Before President Biden left office, he had signed a pardon for Dr Anthony Fauci. While Fauci maintained that he had committed no crime, it was speculated that Biden had pardoned Fauci because once Trump took over, he could potentially have been indicted for perjury.
A leaked email conversation between Dr Anthony Fauci and James LeDuc also showed that the US National Institutes of Health-funded an institute that trained researchers at the Wuhan lab’s biosafety level four facility. In 2025, the CIA confirmed that the source of COVID-19 was most likely a lab leak – something Dr Fauci had denied, perhaps owing to his funding the research on the virus.
Raman Laxminarayanan, who has been pictured with Fauci and was invited by him for a lecture back in 2016, claims on his website that he is leading the largest COVID-19 epidemiology study in the world based on extensive contact tracing in India. The flagship paper from this study was published in Science in 2020.
Ramanan Laxminarayanan – lobbying for Pfizer in India?
On the 19th of December 2021, The New York Times published an article titled “Most of the World’s Vaccines Likely Won’t Prevent Infection From Omicron”. It was an article basically pushing for vaccines like Pfizer while discreting other vaccines. In the article, Ramanan Laxminarayan was quoted lobbying for Pfizer.
Some experts from the article:
A growing body of preliminary research suggests the Covid vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious Omicron variant. All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from Omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world. The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic…
…The Pfizer and Moderna shots use the new mRNA technology, which has consistently offered the best protection against infection with every variant. All of the other vaccines are based on older methods of triggering an immune response. The Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac — which make up almost half of all shots delivered globally — offer almost zero protection from Omicron infection…
…A preliminary effectiveness study in Britain found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed no ability to stop Omicron infection six months after vaccination. Ninety percent of vaccinated people in India received this shot, under the brand name Covishield; it has also been widely used across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where Covax, the global Covid vaccine program, has distributed 67 million doses of it to 44 countries…
…But some public health experts say they believe that countries that have already been through brutal waves of Covid, such as Brazil and India, may have a buffer against Omicron, and vaccination after infection produces high antibody levels. “The combination of vaccination and exposure to the virus seems to be stronger than only having the vaccine,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist. India, he noted, has an adult vaccination rate of only about 40 percent but 90 percent exposure to the virus in some areas. “Without a doubt Omicron is going to flood through India,” he said. “But hopefully India is protected to some extent because of vaccination and exposure”…
…Dr. Laxminarayan said the Indian government, to which he is an occasional adviser, was considering booster shots, but the Delta variant still poses a significant threat in India, and two vaccine doses offer protection against Delta. That presents the government with a difficult choice between focusing on getting people who remain unvaccinated, or only partly vaccinated, to two doses, or trying to get boosters to older people and those with high-risk medical conditions as protection against Omicron.
Throughout the article, it was evident that the NTY and Ramanan were lobbying for Pfizer.
The first and foremost reason that India did not approve the Pfizer vaccine for use in India was the indemnity clause. It had sought waiver against liabilities that may occur out of the adverse effects of the vaccine. It had also refused to transfer technology for local production. It was also reported that Pfizer had asked several Latin American nations to pledge their sovereign and military assets, including federal reserves and embassies in foreign countries, as indemnity against any future liability that may arise due to side effects of the vaccine or any negligence of the company. The Pharmaceutical giant had also asked the countries to deposit bank guarantees in foreign countries as part of such indemnity.
Further, in November 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Pfizer, accusing the company of unlawfully misrepresenting the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discourse about the product. The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by making unsupported claims regarding the vaccine’s efficacy, in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Similarly, in June 2024, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sued Pfizer, alleging that the company misled the public about its COVID-19 vaccine by hiding risks while making false claims about its effectiveness. The lawsuit claims that Pfizer’s actions violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act.
It is interesting to note here it was reported that Pfizer was paying several celebrities to promote their vaccine and also, Pfizer donated $1 million in 2021 to Joe Biden’s inaugural committee.
Given the narrative furthered by Ramanan Laxminarayanan, his proximity to Dr Anthony Fauci, his funding from the US Deep State including USAID and NED, one has to wonder why Ramanan was promoting Pfizer and discrediting the vaccines which were being used by India.
Conclusion
Dr Ramanan Laxminarayanan, as our research found, is funded by USAID, CDC and NED – the USAID ‘operational partner’ which gets its grants vetted by the CIA. The USAID and NED have participated in destabilising countries and regime change operations throughout the world. During the COVID pandemic, an entire narrative was created against India and the Modi-led government with Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan playing a massive role in it. He repeatedly insinuated that the death toll, as being reported by the Modi government was not accurate and that the deaths were most likely in the millions. This narrative was further latched on to by the Congress party and several others – including the global media – which harbours a visceral hate for not just PM Modi but also India as a nation. The negative narrative, ridden with misinformation and conjecture was aimed at a potential exercise of narrative building against the Modi government, in the hopes that the COVID-19 negativity could affect a change in government. Further, Dr Ramanan also seems to have lobbied in the global press in favour of Pfizer, discrediting the vaccine being used by India.
One of the reasons Donald Trump couldn’t get re-elected was bad press about how he handled the COVID-19 crisis with publications like NYT printing just the names of all Americans who died on the front page. It would not be far-fetched to wonder if a similar outcome was expected in India – based on misinformation, false narratives and conjectures.
