The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

I'm not entirely sure if this post has anything to do with playing Left 4 Dead, or if I've wanted to make this post for a long time, but it has gotten me thinking about what can only be called The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.  I will begin by saying that I believe in ghosts, so that my position on this topic has an admitted slant.  And there's a very small, intuitive leap to made from ghosts to the living dead.  Think of this post as more of a rambling investigation into the possibilities than a definitive thesis.

Three words:  Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Let me explain.  We believe now that Mad Cow Disease occurs when cows are fed the remains of other cows; the act of eating a member of your own species is referred to as cannibalism.  The disease can be passed onto humans who eat either the brain or spinal stem of an infected cow; something that can happen with hamburger and has happened before.  The infectious agent believed to cause the disease is a misfolded protein called a prion.  Once transferred to a human host, this disease is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

This is what happens when some one gets the disease:

A related cousin of kuru, this incurable but transmissible disease causes physiological and neurological failures that ultimately lead to death.  The first symptoms include rapidly increasing dementia and personality changes stemming from memory loss.  Essentially, the frontal lobe becomes damaged and the person suffers memory loss and hallucinations that erase their fundamental personality.

The next symptoms are more physiological.  They include speech impairment, rigid posture and coordination dysfunction.  Also noteworthy are an increase in involuntary movements.  Most important are the changes to brain chemistry:  seratonin has been widely researched as a neurotransmitting chemical directly related to controlling agression.  If brain chemistry were altered in a way that would block the synthesis and regulation of seratonin, we could devolve into overly agressive personalities.

Even worse, the effects of being infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease may not even manifest for years, due to an immense variation in incubation.  It is now believed that like kuru, incubation may take anywhere up to 30-40 years.  There were between 460,000 and 482,000 Mad Cow Disease infected animals entered into the human food chain before controls were put in place in 1989.  That means anyone who ate a hamburger before 1989 could be carrying the malfolded prions that ultimately lead to CJD... and begin manifesting the symptoms at any moment.

What we have is a transmissible protein, gained by eating infected tissue, that causes mental deterioration and physiological dysfunction and increased aggression, that is incurable and invariably fatal.  But it can also be transffered by bodily fluid exchange.  As such, the Red Cross has placed several bans on people donating blood who may have contracted the disease.  Similarly, the FDA has placed bans on importing sperm from donors in countries that may have contracted the disease.

While zombies are commonly considered residents in the realm of science fiction, it may turn out that they fall under the realm of science as well.  And that is a terrifying possibility.