The Genius and the Boys

A genius, everyone agrees about that. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek won a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1976 for his research into cannibals who became ill after eating brains. Opinions on his private life are divided. In 1997, Gajdusek was convicted of child abuse. On his long journeys, he would often bring children back to America, take them into his home and give them a good education, until it emerged that he was having sexual relations with some of them. Interviewed shortly before his death, Gajdusek does not deny the allegations in this episode of the BBC's. He does however defend himself, almost savagely, by saying that he never asked for sex himself, but that the boys always came to him voluntarily. He refuses to give any explanation: "I prefer to analyze nature, to ask 'why' implies a wisdom you don't have and I don't have." Psychologist Oliver Sacks, mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, and HIV discoverer Robert Gallo all speak about this painful case, as does a -- now adult -- pupil. Abuse of power played a considerable role in the case of this eminent scientist, who often seduced disturbed boys from different cultures with adventurous tales, and gave them the attention they did not get at home. Gajdusek died in Tromsø, Norway shortly after this documentary was completed.