The Genius and the Boys

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The documentary investigates late American Nobel laureate Carleton Gajdusek's enigmatic discoveries. Gajdusek discovered mad cow disease on Papua New Guinea in the fifties, as well as twenty previously unknown stone-age peoples and languages. From the late 1940's and onwards he commuted the world, focusing on the most isolated peoples still remaining on the globe. He adopted 57 children to his commune at the National Institutes of Health, MA, USA -most of them boys. In the late 90's he was charged with having abused one of the boys in his care - a then 16-year old boy from Micronesia. The film reveals how Gajdusek in fact was a self-proclaimed pedophile, who admitted to having had sex with numerous other children as well. One man who was abused in childhood is interviewed in the film, as well as several legendary scientists who were friends of Gajdusek and deemed the sexual parts of his character as of less importance.