Daniel Carleton Gajdusek

This program presents filmed sequences of a group of twenty-nine villagers from Sahneh who had been attacked by a rabid wolf. Filmed sequences of one villager taken at various times during his disease, are presented to illustrate the clinical course and manifestations of the disease in this man. The man is seen after he is bitten but before he manifests symptoms overtly, the third day of his disease, and the fifth day of the disease. Scenes taken as the patient dies are also included. A doctor is also shown as he apparently examined the man to verify that death has occurred.

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)