Vietnam backs San Francisco court’s ruling on Monsanto
Vietnam supports the San Francisco court’s August 10 ruling that ordered Monsanto company to pay damages to a US resident for the impact of its herbicides on the man’s health.
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The statement was made by Deputy Spokesperson of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Phuong Tra at a regular press conference in Ha Noi on August 23.
The official was responding to queries from reporters regarding Monsanto’s payment of 289 million USD in compensation for its cancer-causing herbicides.
The ruling runs counter to previous opinions that the herbicides Monsanto and US chemical producers provided for the US army during the war in Vietnam caused no harm to human health, she said.
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| Monsanto has long been associated with the Agent Orange usage in Vietnam. Around 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical. (Photo: VNA) |
Vietnam has suffered severely from the war’s consequences, including the lingering and serious impact of toxic chemicals and Agent Orange, the official stressed.
Tra said Monsanto must also bear the responsibility to compensate for the harmful effects caused on Vietnamese Agent Orange victims by the herbicides the company supplied.
The US chemical group has long been associated with the Agent Orange usage in Vietnam. It was one of the main suppliers of more than 80 million litres of herbicides that US troops sprayed over southern Vietnam from 1961-1971. Of the volume, 44 million litres were Agent Orange, containing nearly 370kg of dioxin.
Around 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical. As a consequence of the exposure, many of the victims died from a variety of diseases, while millions of their descendants were also born with deformities and diseases.
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(Source: VNA)
