Nation IN BRIEF : MARYLAND : Scientist Held on Sex Abuse Charges

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist at the National Institutes of Health was arrested on charges that he sexually abused a teenage boy from Micronesia who lived at his home. Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek, 72, who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for his research into a novel infectious agent, was taken into custody at his house in Frederick, Md. The charges stem from allegations made by a 23-year-old college student whom Gajdusek brought to the U.S. when the boy was 15. The abuse persisted until two years ago, the FBI says. Gajdusek denied the charges, saying that he was a child abuser “as much as Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa, who also are unmarried and love children.”