Monsanto, Vietnam announces claim for Agent Orange damages
Following Monsanto’s historic condemnation of the incurable disease caused by the glyphosate to a gardener in the US, the Vietnam announces a colossal compensation claim for the damage done to its people by theAgent Orange.
The Hanoi government is thus finally seeking justice for the victims of widespread exposure to Agent Orange. (1) A violent agrotoxin supplied by Monsanto to the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
‘The verdict [Judge Vincent Chhabria’s 11.8.18 ruling against the St. Louis-based giant, ed.] serves as a legal precedent that refutes previous claims that herbicides produced by Monsanto and other Corporation Chemicals in the United States and supplied for the U.S. military in the war are harmless’
(Nguyen Phuong Tra, spokesman for the deputy foreign minister, Hanoi, 8/24/18).
‘
Vietnam has suffered
enormous consequences from the war, especially the lasting and devastating effects of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange,’ said the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman. (2)
Agent Orange-an aggressive herbicide and defoliant manufactured by the Missouri Corporation-was widely used by the U.S. military, during the Vietnam War in the 1960-70s. For purposes not agronomic but wartime.
Up to 80 million liters of pesticides were sprayed over an area comparable to a quarter of the entire South Vietnam. To destroy forest and mangrove cover to enemy militias, discover bombing targets and annihilate food supplies of populations under siege.
At least three million Vietnamese were bombed by the U.S. Air Force, between 1962 and 1971, with agrotoxin mixtures laden with carcinogenic and teratogenic dioxins. That is, capable of inducing neoplasms, embryonic and congenital malformations, genetic mutations, reproductive damage, and other serious diseases.
After more than half a century, dioxins continue to remain in soils and foods. Fish and shrimp, poultry and eggs, pigs and other animals with food destinations contain dioxin in amounts up to 200 times higher than average. (3) Which is thus transferred into human tissues and breast milk, which are similarly intoxicated. (4)
The tragedy persists, to the detriment of the environment and populations, between generations, to the present day. And the only reparations so far have been granted to some U.S. veterans. Instead, the claims of Vietnamese victims were rejected. (5)
Monsanto’s recent conviction in the San Francisco Court-in a legal system based on ‘case-law,’ as the U.S. system is-could actually set a new course and restore justice to the unarmed victims of chemical bombing in Vietnam.
U.S. State Department resistance may turn out to be at least partly mitigated, since Monsanto is now foreign-owned (Bayer). But there will certainly be no shortage of pressure, in the face of fears of new actions for redress of so many other damages unjustly inflicted in various parts of the world. (6)
Some insights in the short video‘The Dark Shadow of Agent Orange,’ New York Times.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Agent Orange is a 50:50 mixture of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). The latter substance is contaminated with the most severely toxic dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, TCDD)
(2) V.
http://m.english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/government/207385/vn-welcomes-monsanto-ruling–foreign-ministry.html#
(3) See J Occup Environ Med. 2003 Aug;45(8):781-8. Chemosphere. 2014 Nov;114:268-74; doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2014.05.010. Epub 2014 Jun 2.
(4) V. Environ Geochem Health, 2018 May 10; doi: 10.1007/s10653-018-0118-8. J Occup Environ Med. 2001 May, 43(5):435-43
(5) The most important case was settled in the District Court of
Eastern New York
, in 2005, See
Med Confl Surviv.
2016 Apr-Jun;32(2):138-152. Epub 2016 Oct 16. See also what is reported in the free ebook ‘
‘GMOs, the big scam
‘, at
https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/libri/ogm-la-grande-truffa
(6) The ‘depleted uranium’ chapter could be long, from the former Yugoslavia to the Middle East
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
