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The Genius and the Boys

60 %|Jun 1, 2009|TV Movie, Documentary

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)

Featured Crew

Jonas Kellagher
Producer
Bosse Lindquist
Writer
Bernhard Winkler
Editor
Bosse Lindquist
Director
Lars Heleander
Production Manager

Cast

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Michael Alpers
Himself - Professor of Medicine - Expert on Kuru
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Warwick Anderson
Professor in Medical Anthropology
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Sena Anua
Medical Reporter - PNGIMR
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Carleton Gajdusek
Himself - Virologist - Anthropologist - Linguist - Author - etc
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Robert Gallo
Himself - Director, Institute of Human Virology and Co-discoverer HIV
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Oliver Sacks
Himself - Professor of Neurology and Author
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Benoît B. Mandelbrot
Himself - Former Professor of Mathematics - Yale and Princeton (as Benoit Mandelbrot)