Despite the Horrific Legacy of Agent Orange, Vietnam Welcomes Monsanto’s GMOs

By Christina Sarich

One of Monsanto’s former companies, among nine contractors responsible for creating Agent Orange, sprayed more than 20 million gallons of the herbicide on an area of South Vietnam about the size of the state of Massachusetts between 1962 and 1971.

In a caustic plot twist, the Vietnamese government says it hopes to have 30 to 50 percent of its cropland planted with GMOs by 2020 — exactly 55 years after the U.S. government first devastated Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas.

Monsanto and the U.S. government alike have issued statements saying Monsanto deserves no blame for making chemical agents that have caused hundreds of thousands of birth defects and contaminated Vietnam’s land so inexorably that even without applying additional herbicides to transgenic crops, they shall remain toxic for decades.

Babies are still being born today with horrific birth defects — decades after Agent Orange was sprayed so haphazardly across Vietnam. Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000 deaths and a grab bag of health issues that would make a haunted house seem cheery. An estimated 650,000 victims are suffering from chronic illnesses linked to Agent Orange in Vietnam, alone.

The Vietnamese government has never officially stated its stance on the grievous actions of Monsanto and other military contractors for the U.S., focusing instead on reparations for victims of Agent Orange. As one of the makers of Agent Orange, Monsanto claims they were just following the recipe for the formula as directed by the U.S. Government.

Instead, the country seems to be embracing a company headquartered in the U.S.A., and its incessant propaganda promoting genetically modified organisms.

Furthermore, dioxin, found in Agent Orange, is one of the most dangerous chemicals ever made by man.  Though the U.S. military carries out orders to help remove dioxin ‘hot-spots,’ their actions include heating the old Da Nang air base to temperatures above 600 degrees Fahrenheit, a level said to render the toxin harmless. There is no scientific proof that this even works.

A draft report released for public comment in September 1994 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat, yet Cao Duc Phat, Vietnam’s former agriculture minister says there’s no problem. He states,

GMOs are a scientific achievement of humankind, and Vietnam needs to embrace them as soon as possible.

This is a surprising statement since dioxin and other herbicides are part of the overall platform upon which genetically modified crops are sold. According to the USDA, in recent years, more than 93 percent of soy planted in America was “herbicide tolerant,” meaning it was engineered to withstand herbicides (sold by the same companies who patent and sell the seeds).

Although the toxicity of dioxins harms human health through other means of contamination, such as through industrial emissions, Enlist Duo, the latest herbicidal development by Dow Agrochemical and Monsanto is a combination of both 2,4-D and glyphosate. It has been called the ‘Agent Orange’ of GMOs by environmentalists, though others dispute this fact.

Meanwhile, Monsanto, who has absolved themselves from any responsibility in practically defecating on Vietnam with their insidious chemicals, is creating yet a new herbicide for use in the U.S. Companies like Dow Chemical and Bayer are also implicated in putting more dioxin into the environment — and they too promote the GM agenda.

Enlist Duo — the latest herbicide, which is a combination of 2,4-D (another component of Agent Orange), choline, and glyphosate — is set to be approved anytime.

Dekalb Vietnam, which operates under U.S. mega-corporation Monsanto; Pioneer Hi-Bred Vietnam, under the U.S.’s Dupont; and Syngenta of Switzerland have been licensed to carry out lab research and tests on genetically-modified seeds in Vietnam since 2011.

Moreover, Monsanto received the endorsement of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which announced that their worm- and weed-killer-resistant varieties are “environmentally friendly.”

Fifty-five years after rendering almost an entire country cancerous, chemical companies like Monsanto are welcomed with open arms into Vietnam. It boggles the mind.

This article (Despite the Horrific Legacy of Agent Orange, Vietnam Welcomes Monsanto’s GMOs) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Christina Sarich and UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to [email protected]. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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