Vietnam bans import of glyphosate herbicides after US cancer trial verdict

Vietnam has announced that it has banned the import of all glyphosate-based herbicides with immediate effect following the latest cancer trial verdict from San Francisco, in a move which has shaken Bayer’s Asian market for its top-selling product.
 

Hoang Trung, Director of the Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, stated Saturday to Tuoi Tre newspaper that  the import and trans-national trading of herbicides containing glyphosate would be banned immediately. Glyphosate herbicides are currently widely used in Vietnam.
 

“As soon as there was information that the second trial in the U.S. ruled that glyphosate was related to cancer, we put a ban on the import of new herbicides containing the active ingredient. And the removal of this substance from the list of pesticides allowed to be used in Vietnam will be done in the near future,” Trung said.
 

Trung added that to prohibit a certain substance that has been circulated his department must proceed with the correct legal procedures.. The new Plant Protection Department has prohibited the import of new shipments of glyphosate-based herbicides, while the consignments of glyphosate-based herbicides currently in circulation in Vietnam will still trade normally.
 

Vietnam’s move comes less than a week after a California federal jury foundthat Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller was likely a substantial factor in causing a man’s cancer, delivering a major blow to the Bayer AG unit in the first such federal bellwether trial and setting the stage for a second phase to determine damages.
 

Five women and one man reached their unanimous verdict in favor of plaintiff Ed Hardeman after deliberating for a week. In reaching its decision, the jury effectively rejected Monsanto’s argument that there is no way to know what caused Hardeman’s Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
 

The verdict marked the end of the first phase of the closely watched two-part trial that began Feb. 25. In the initial phase, the jury was tasked with deciding whether science supports the conclusion that Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, can generally cause Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and whether it specifically caused Hardeman’s cancer, leaving damages and other claims to be decided in the second phase.
 

In 2017 the Vietnamese government also officially announced a ban on Syngenta’s paraquat, a highly hazardous pesticide (HHP) and Dow Chemicals’  2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), an organic compound found in Agent Orange, which was heavily used during the Vietnam War.