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TUESDAY 30 AUGUST
Documentary
The Sperminator
10:00pm - 11:05pm
Channel 4
VIDEO Plus+: 7796924
Subtitled
Another week, another luridly titled documentary on Channel 4. But what sounds like a bad lads' joke is in fact a sad and bewildering story about a rogue fertility doctor in America. Dr Cecil Jacobson was a renowned genetic scientist who pioneered amniocentesis in the USA. In the mid-1970s he set up a private fertility clinic in Vienna, Virginia, where he preyed on childless couples. In some cases he convinced women they were pregnant when they weren't, then told them they'd had a miscarriage. In other cases, artificial insemination was successful and patients had children, but the sperm came from Jacobson himself. He is thought to have fathered around 75 children in the Virginia area. It's a cautionary tale of a rampant ego trip with awful consequences.
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