Previous News Updates
04/08/96
Well, I want to apologize to all the people who watch this page for the recent
lack of activity. Work has a way of intruding into the time I want to spend on
this in a most inconvenient way!
Special thanks to those of you who have written to me with your stories and
questions. I hope I have been of some help to you. If you wrote to me and
haven't gotten an answer, please feel free to bug me again. I _do_ read all my
mail but sometimes need a nudge to answer it promptly.
I am still trying to work out the logistics of attending the conference in Dallas
next weekend. Wish me luck, and I hope to see some of you there.
Just a day or two ago a high ranking researcher affiliated with the NIH was
indicted on child abuse charges involving bringing over 50 children into the
country over the past 20 years. Just another case of a possibly bad apple being
in an influential position in medical research. Excerpts from the news story as
follows:
The Globe & Mail April 6, 1996
NOBEL WINNER CHARGED WITH CHILD ABUSE
U.S. Doctor brought overseas children home
Associated Press (Baltimore): For years, Nobel laureate, Dr. Daniel
Carleton Gajdusek, brought children home from his research trips to the
South Pacific -- 56 in the past 20 years -- and paid for their education in
the United States. As a pediatrician and researcher, he studied their
development and health. When he accepted the 1976 Nobel Prize in medicine
with eight boys in tow, he promised to use the award money to send them to
college. Now the 72 year old has been accused of molesting a teen-ager he
brought home from Micronesia in 1987. And investigators are taking a closer
look at all the children he brought to the United States in the past two
decades. "There are a lot of people who we want to talk to," Maryland
Attorney-General Scott Rolle said.
The FBI said its investigation of Dr. Gajdusek grew out of a probe of child
pornography on the Internet. Agents would not say how the two were related.
Dr. Gajdusek was charged after the alleged victim, now aged 23, agreed to
cooperate with the investigation. During a phone call last month, the boy
asked Dr. Gajdusek whether he knew what a pedophile is. "I am one," he
responded, according to court papers, before pleading with the boy not to
report him. He was charged Thursday with child abuse and perverted sexual
practices. His bail was reduced from $1 million to $350,000 yesterday...
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