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The Genius and the Boys (2009)

The Genius and the Boys (2009)

TV Movie Documentary
Release Date: 2009, November 20
Directors: Bosse Lindquist
Countries: Sweden
Production: ARTE GEIE, BBC Storyville, DR-Dokumentar, Eight Millimetres, SVT Dokumentär, Svenska Filminstitutet
Cast: Oliver Sacks, Michael Alpers, Warwick Anderson, Sena Anua, Robert Gajdusek, Robert Gallo, Lovisa Mbagintao, Benoît B. Mandelbrot

Overview:

D Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Prions - the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease - while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. He was a star of the scientific world. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. His adoptions were hailed as wonderful fatherly beneficence. But, at the height of his career, rumours began to spread he was a paedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn't wrong to join in. How could a great mind like Gajdusek's lose insight so totally, and why would the scientific community to which he was a hero be so quick to leap to his defence and dismiss the allegations? (Storyville)

Keywords:

child abuse sexual abuse nobel prize prions d. carleton gajdusek