After a San Francisco jury proved Monsanto not invincible and ordered the chemical giant to pay $289 million to a school worker who argued he got terminal cancer after using its Roundup herbicide, Vietnam has also demanded compensation from the St. Louis-based company.

“The verdict serves as a legal precedent which refutes previous claims that the herbicides made by Monsanto and other chemical corporations in the US and provided for the US army in the war are harmless,” deputy foreign ministry spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Tra said Thursday. “Vietnam has suffered tremendous consequences from the war, especially with regard to the lasting and devastating effects of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange.”

READ MORE: Jury orders Monsanto to pay California man $289mn in ‘probably carcinogenic’ Roundup trial

Around three million people in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange during a brutal chemical warfare campaign between 1961 and 1971, in which 12 million gallons of herbicide produced by Monsanto Corporation, among others, were dropped over the jungle to defoliate it. Because of such a high level of exposure to dioxin, a byproduct found in Agent Orange, millions of Vietnamese continue to suffer health conditions, often resulting in deformities which are passed through gene mutations to future generations.

Monsanto, which has never acknowledged its role in the devastation, argues that Agent Orange “was only produced for, and used by, the government,” noting that Monsanto was just one of nine wartime government contractors who manufactured the same toxin from 1965 to 1969.

READ MORE: Agent Orange victims in Air Force Reserve now eligible for compensation

Monsanto was acquired by the German giant Bayer AG in June, in a merger deal valued at $66 billion.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!