Zombie apocalypse: why does the British Medical Journal write about this?
My 6-year-old grandson amazes me with his architectural and engineering abilities, creating (in creative) Minecraft. But, his peers in kindergarten play another Minecraft - where zombies and other “evil” need to be “wetted”. They do not understand: why build something? Mass culture from early childhood teaches to kill. There are more murders in children's cartoons than in films for adults (some time ago, an authoritative “British Medical Journal” cited statistics on the number of murders and other violence in children's films).
Prohibiting anything is a failure tactic (“the forbidden fruit is sweet”). Therefore, I try to "argue with arguments." Including, referring to the fact that there are no zombies, and such a game does not make any sense ... But, yesterday, starting the day with a search for what you can put in your group "In Contact" about a healthy lifestyle, stumble upon a fresh publication in the British Medical Journal. Tara S. Smith, an associate professor at the Department of Biostatistics, Environmental Hygiene and Epidemiology at the College of Public Health, Kent State University (Ohio, USA), published an article entitled “Zombie Infections: Epidemiology, Treatment and Prevention.”
')
There is no editorial comment to this article. A fairly extensive bibliography is given. In particular, there is a link to the (no less authoritative) magazine "The Lancet". The article in the "Lancet" is called "The clinical results of three cases of zombification." The two first pages of the article, available for free reading, deal with the use of a computerized tomograph and DNA identification methods for research. But the details were left behind the scenes. So, is a zombie a reality? I follow the second link to the publication of the US Government Center for Disease Control and Prevention (http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/5/ad-1905_article# tnF1).
Here is what they have written:
Sitting at the lab table, the scientist adds change after change to the rabbit virus RNA chain, unaware that in a few days, an outbreak of the disease caused by this virus will destroy our entire society. This could be called “zombie rabies” - like the name of another Hollywood blockbuster.
In other words, the debate about the zombie apocalypse, produced by genetic modification of one of such diseases as rabies, can be more than just fiction. Fear of the unknown has long been a psychological driving force of our curiosity, and the concept of the zombie apocalypse has gained popularity in modern society. This article explores the utility of zombies to take advantage of the spread of public health education through the use of the interconnection of mass culture and the means of scientific explanation of fictional phenomena.
Although zombies are an integral part of our pop culture, the walking dead has been known for several centuries. Historians and anthropologists have traced the origins of zombies in the folklore of several tribes of West Africa, from Ghana to Nigeria.
Haitian voodoo folklore recognizes the dual personality of a zombie: one kind of zombie is a body without a living soul, and another, less well-known, when the soul wanders without a body. The rupture of the body and soul, known as zombies, presumably occurs when the sorcerer (or "Boko") performs black magic manipulations in order to kill or enslave a person. The sorcerer can also use poisonous powders from frogs or toads. The poison tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin secreted by fugu fish, which can cause paralysis and death, can also be included in the ingredients of such a powder. As soon as the sorcerer divides the body and soul, he saves the “ti-Bon Enge” - all the knowledge and memory of his victim in a special bottle. The part of the soul that is stored inside the container is an “astral zombie”. Owning them, the sorcerer retains full control over the victim - this is a spiritually dead body (“zombie cadaver”). The only way that zombies can free themselves from their slavery is by pronouncing a special spell and breaking a vessel containing the “ti-bonge” of this zombie or if the victim swallows salt or meat.
Although most view zombies as fictional creatures, zombies are considered fairly common in Haiti. In Haitian and African culture, zombing is a criminal offense of the same gravity as murder (article 246 of the Haitian Criminal Code). The person turned into a zombie is characterized by a dull gaze, "stupid" behavior, an awkward gait and repetitive movements. Doctors could characterize zombies as people with mental disorders, such as catatonic schizophrenia. The same features are included in the current interpretation of zombies in modern mass media.
Zombies and parallels with other public health issues
Rethinking the zombie process as a contagious, incurable disease makes it an effective counterpart for understanding other infectious diseases.
Zombie popularity can be a great opportunity to raise awareness of rabies. The strong similarity between those who are obsessed with rabies and zombies is obvious: both illnesses are primarily transmitted through bites (see table below). In much the same way as with “secondary” zombies, rabies spreads through infection with saliva (in the case of rabies, excessive salivation occurs, increasing the chances of its transmission).
Fighting rabies in practice can be similar to (hypothetical) control of outbreaks of "zombie infections." For example, in 2008, Indonesian officials in Bali killed about 50,000 dogs within 5 days after an outbreak of rabies. This caused a lot of controversy over the alternative mass vaccination. But, if the zombie apocalypse happens, people may not have opportunities for mass vaccination. The only option is to kill the “undead” for the survival of humanity. However, the ethics of destroying those who were once human beings can be questioned.
The physical characteristics of rabies and zombies are also similar. After infection, the victims are characterized by general weakness and high (low-grade) temperature. In the case of zombies, the appearance of fever usually indicates a transition from human to zombie. In the case of rabies, the movements of a person become uncoordinated - muscle spasms and cramps lead to numbness and partial loss of muscle function. Although the physical abilities of zombies vary in the media, zombies with whom we are “familiar” usually have a characteristic “waddling” gait. Rabies causes difficulty swallowing and spasm of the vocal cords. Zombies also often lack the ability to produce any sounds other than a deep moan (although in classic zombie movies they were able to say the word “brains”).
Common characteristics are not only physical attributes. A person with rabies experiences a change in mental state (increased anxiety, stress, anxiety, delirium, abnormal behavior, and hallucinations). Zombies are also usually depicted as having limited cognitive function and aggressive behavior.
The numerous parallels between zombies and rabies, as well as other infectious diseases that pose a threat to public health, allow zombies to be used to promote public health. In the absence of special training in the field of medicine, a man in the street can become significantly interested in and understand rabies by comparing him and zombies. In the media, the main characters always find a way to fight zombies and ensure survival. The fight against infectious diseases is similar to this fight. Using zombie analogies can provide food for thought, thus inspiring people to be prepared and to prevent the development of infectious diseases.
Zombie psychology
Zombies can inspire fear to those who have seen them in popular culture, and this fear can be compared to the same emotions that a person may experience when faced with the unknown. Some fears caused by zombies include fear of brain dysfunction, fear of death, and a sense of hopelessness. Zombies, in turn, transform these fears into something concrete - into something that we can reflect on “from a safe distance” - unlike other activities with a higher risk (parachuting or bungee jumping).
According to psychologists, watching movies like "28 weeks later" can prepare us for a possible situation where our fears can become reality. We must, at the very least, recognize the positive emotional effect of seeing past success stories about outbreaks of rabies and infectious diseases. After all, a progressive society cannot be built on feelings of fear and anxiety. This is the best way to create a sense of hope and community.
The need for psychological preparation is caused not only by the need to overcome fear, which (otherwise) may become the main motivation in community actions. Using zombies as an analogue and instructional tool for rational behavior in massive infectious diseases, we can (psychologically more effectively) achieve more than what websites and blogs can do in disaster preparedness.
The excitement and interest in the "undead" is caused by our psychological "projection" of the fictional world onto the real one.
These “projections” can cause us to rethink many ethical dilemmas and moral issues. For example, cause sympathy for patients with degenerative diseases such as rabies, Alzheimer's disease or cancer. Recall the officials who made the decision to kill 50,000 potentially healthy dogs. Is it ethical to kill potentially uninfected people (for security reasons, of course) who have just been bitten but still retain all their cognitive functions? Is the quarantine of hundreds of thousands of people moraled in a large “locked” military city? All of this may be more interesting if discussed in comparing the context of rabies and zombies.
Discussion
Zombies have already gained momentum not only in the media, but also in the field of public health. They entered into the “routine” of health care in mid-2011, when, after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in early March of that year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opened a forum on Twitter. At the CDC forum, asked what types of emergencies, people are ready for and what tactics they consider useful for disaster preparedness. Several people showed interest in preparing for the catastrophic zombie attack.
Their answers were likely to be joking, but they demonstrated the popularity of zombies in popular culture and their usefulness for drawing attention to health issues. As a result, Dr. S. Ali Khan and his colleagues wrote a special column on public health issues on the CDC website. They used zombies as a “hook” to attract readers to an article that describes how to best prepare for a “zombie apocalypse,” and in a broader sense, to any natural or man-made disaster.
The popularity of the CDC article on the “zombie apocalypse” has led others to write their own, shedding light not only on disaster preparedness, but also on zombie ethics. Among them is a review article by Daniel O'Connor from Johns Hopkins University. In this article, O'Connor identified several bioethical problems (the threshold at which a person can no longer be considered a person, when and how to kill a zombie in a morally acceptable way, the ratio of risk and benefit for as many people as possible). The most effective strategies suggested taking into account the diverse opinions of the community, rather than transferring all decisions exclusively to the military, politicians, and health experts. Many of these bioethical principles are important in advancing intervention strategies for a variety of other diseases. However, O'Connor subtly emphasizes the precariousness of such guidelines in the face of real disasters that threaten to destabilize the health infrastructure itself. The article points to the clear need to provide assurances that public health standards will continue even in the event of an apocalyptic pandemic.
It has also been suggested that a virus similar to the rabies virus may become a threat similar to the zombie apocalypse. The authors of the article of the National Geographic Society called “Zombie Virus”: Can I Build Madness into the Flu Virus? ”Shed light on what they consider to be an irrational fear. First, there is a “mechanistic” barrier to creating the perfect zombie virus from the rabies virus. Contrary to the immediate start of zombies, the development of rabies in the body occurs in a period of 10 days to 1 year. There is also a genetic barrier: it is not yet known to science how to combine the two “independent” viruses. Despite the presence of state-of-the-art genetic engineering, which can “combine” the airborne “potential” of the influenza virus with the rabies virus, there is little certainty that such a virus can be viable under natural conditions.
But, if the “cocktail” of deadly viruses cannot yet imitate the features of zombies, are there any other microorganisms that can do this? The answer to this question is closer than one would expect. Just the wrong folding of proteins in the brain can lead to the creation of a whole family of such abnormalities, called "prions". Prions can eventually lead to brain disease (encephalopathy), which can lead to personality changes, loss of cognitive functions, and muscular twitching, characteristic signs of zombies. Fortunately, modern scientific evidence suggests that prions are not capable of causing the spread of epidemics. Having an incubation period of 12–18 months before death, prions do not seem to be a big threat, compared to the zombie apocalypse.
Governments can also be a barrier to zombie outbreaks, by isolating and controlling the source of such infections circulating in the world. However, some may argue that the government’s response to the zombie apocalypse can lead to discrimination against some of the population. But, we assume that a large part of our society relies on often false considerations, and in some cases even on satire, describing a non-functioning or poorly functioning state. Still, when we deal with outbreaks of diseases beyond our comprehension, we must first create a capable society that can effectively deal with outbreaks and solve civil problems.
findings
Zombies can be used as a powerful tool to raise awareness of public health issues. We propose to continue these efforts, build on the popularity of zombies in order to raise public awareness of health issues, as well as explore issues that were not previously taken into account (infection control, mental health issues, disease ethics, the potential of bio-terrorism).
Such is the article. But, it turns out that the CDC article is still about something else. After all, Tara S.Smith writes precisely about zombies, and not about zombie-like mass infections ...
( www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6423 )
Speaking of rabies: its natural carriers are squirrels and hedgehogs. The death of three squirrel breeders was recently registered in Germany. Be extremely careful yourself and take care of your children (“contact” zoos of “walking distance” are very popular now).
Prohibiting anything is a failure tactic (“the forbidden fruit is sweet”). Therefore, I try to "argue with arguments." Including, referring to the fact that there are no zombies, and such a game does not make any sense ... But, yesterday, starting the day with a search for what you can put in your group "In Contact" about a healthy lifestyle, stumble upon a fresh publication in the British Medical Journal. Tara S. Smith, an associate professor at the Department of Biostatistics, Environmental Hygiene and Epidemiology at the College of Public Health, Kent State University (Ohio, USA), published an article entitled “Zombie Infections: Epidemiology, Treatment and Prevention.”
')
There is no editorial comment to this article. A fairly extensive bibliography is given. In particular, there is a link to the (no less authoritative) magazine "The Lancet". The article in the "Lancet" is called "The clinical results of three cases of zombification." The two first pages of the article, available for free reading, deal with the use of a computerized tomograph and DNA identification methods for research. But the details were left behind the scenes. So, is a zombie a reality? I follow the second link to the publication of the US Government Center for Disease Control and Prevention (http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/5/ad-1905_article# tnF1).
Here is what they have written:
Sitting at the lab table, the scientist adds change after change to the rabbit virus RNA chain, unaware that in a few days, an outbreak of the disease caused by this virus will destroy our entire society. This could be called “zombie rabies” - like the name of another Hollywood blockbuster.
In other words, the debate about the zombie apocalypse, produced by genetic modification of one of such diseases as rabies, can be more than just fiction. Fear of the unknown has long been a psychological driving force of our curiosity, and the concept of the zombie apocalypse has gained popularity in modern society. This article explores the utility of zombies to take advantage of the spread of public health education through the use of the interconnection of mass culture and the means of scientific explanation of fictional phenomena.
Although zombies are an integral part of our pop culture, the walking dead has been known for several centuries. Historians and anthropologists have traced the origins of zombies in the folklore of several tribes of West Africa, from Ghana to Nigeria.
Haitian voodoo folklore recognizes the dual personality of a zombie: one kind of zombie is a body without a living soul, and another, less well-known, when the soul wanders without a body. The rupture of the body and soul, known as zombies, presumably occurs when the sorcerer (or "Boko") performs black magic manipulations in order to kill or enslave a person. The sorcerer can also use poisonous powders from frogs or toads. The poison tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin secreted by fugu fish, which can cause paralysis and death, can also be included in the ingredients of such a powder. As soon as the sorcerer divides the body and soul, he saves the “ti-Bon Enge” - all the knowledge and memory of his victim in a special bottle. The part of the soul that is stored inside the container is an “astral zombie”. Owning them, the sorcerer retains full control over the victim - this is a spiritually dead body (“zombie cadaver”). The only way that zombies can free themselves from their slavery is by pronouncing a special spell and breaking a vessel containing the “ti-bonge” of this zombie or if the victim swallows salt or meat.
Although most view zombies as fictional creatures, zombies are considered fairly common in Haiti. In Haitian and African culture, zombing is a criminal offense of the same gravity as murder (article 246 of the Haitian Criminal Code). The person turned into a zombie is characterized by a dull gaze, "stupid" behavior, an awkward gait and repetitive movements. Doctors could characterize zombies as people with mental disorders, such as catatonic schizophrenia. The same features are included in the current interpretation of zombies in modern mass media.
Zombies and parallels with other public health issues
Rethinking the zombie process as a contagious, incurable disease makes it an effective counterpart for understanding other infectious diseases.
Zombie popularity can be a great opportunity to raise awareness of rabies. The strong similarity between those who are obsessed with rabies and zombies is obvious: both illnesses are primarily transmitted through bites (see table below). In much the same way as with “secondary” zombies, rabies spreads through infection with saliva (in the case of rabies, excessive salivation occurs, increasing the chances of its transmission).
Fighting rabies in practice can be similar to (hypothetical) control of outbreaks of "zombie infections." For example, in 2008, Indonesian officials in Bali killed about 50,000 dogs within 5 days after an outbreak of rabies. This caused a lot of controversy over the alternative mass vaccination. But, if the zombie apocalypse happens, people may not have opportunities for mass vaccination. The only option is to kill the “undead” for the survival of humanity. However, the ethics of destroying those who were once human beings can be questioned.
The physical characteristics of rabies and zombies are also similar. After infection, the victims are characterized by general weakness and high (low-grade) temperature. In the case of zombies, the appearance of fever usually indicates a transition from human to zombie. In the case of rabies, the movements of a person become uncoordinated - muscle spasms and cramps lead to numbness and partial loss of muscle function. Although the physical abilities of zombies vary in the media, zombies with whom we are “familiar” usually have a characteristic “waddling” gait. Rabies causes difficulty swallowing and spasm of the vocal cords. Zombies also often lack the ability to produce any sounds other than a deep moan (although in classic zombie movies they were able to say the word “brains”).
Common characteristics are not only physical attributes. A person with rabies experiences a change in mental state (increased anxiety, stress, anxiety, delirium, abnormal behavior, and hallucinations). Zombies are also usually depicted as having limited cognitive function and aggressive behavior.
The numerous parallels between zombies and rabies, as well as other infectious diseases that pose a threat to public health, allow zombies to be used to promote public health. In the absence of special training in the field of medicine, a man in the street can become significantly interested in and understand rabies by comparing him and zombies. In the media, the main characters always find a way to fight zombies and ensure survival. The fight against infectious diseases is similar to this fight. Using zombie analogies can provide food for thought, thus inspiring people to be prepared and to prevent the development of infectious diseases.
Zombie psychology
Zombies can inspire fear to those who have seen them in popular culture, and this fear can be compared to the same emotions that a person may experience when faced with the unknown. Some fears caused by zombies include fear of brain dysfunction, fear of death, and a sense of hopelessness. Zombies, in turn, transform these fears into something concrete - into something that we can reflect on “from a safe distance” - unlike other activities with a higher risk (parachuting or bungee jumping).
According to psychologists, watching movies like "28 weeks later" can prepare us for a possible situation where our fears can become reality. We must, at the very least, recognize the positive emotional effect of seeing past success stories about outbreaks of rabies and infectious diseases. After all, a progressive society cannot be built on feelings of fear and anxiety. This is the best way to create a sense of hope and community.
The need for psychological preparation is caused not only by the need to overcome fear, which (otherwise) may become the main motivation in community actions. Using zombies as an analogue and instructional tool for rational behavior in massive infectious diseases, we can (psychologically more effectively) achieve more than what websites and blogs can do in disaster preparedness.
The excitement and interest in the "undead" is caused by our psychological "projection" of the fictional world onto the real one.
These “projections” can cause us to rethink many ethical dilemmas and moral issues. For example, cause sympathy for patients with degenerative diseases such as rabies, Alzheimer's disease or cancer. Recall the officials who made the decision to kill 50,000 potentially healthy dogs. Is it ethical to kill potentially uninfected people (for security reasons, of course) who have just been bitten but still retain all their cognitive functions? Is the quarantine of hundreds of thousands of people moraled in a large “locked” military city? All of this may be more interesting if discussed in comparing the context of rabies and zombies.
Discussion
Zombies have already gained momentum not only in the media, but also in the field of public health. They entered into the “routine” of health care in mid-2011, when, after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in early March of that year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opened a forum on Twitter. At the CDC forum, asked what types of emergencies, people are ready for and what tactics they consider useful for disaster preparedness. Several people showed interest in preparing for the catastrophic zombie attack.
Their answers were likely to be joking, but they demonstrated the popularity of zombies in popular culture and their usefulness for drawing attention to health issues. As a result, Dr. S. Ali Khan and his colleagues wrote a special column on public health issues on the CDC website. They used zombies as a “hook” to attract readers to an article that describes how to best prepare for a “zombie apocalypse,” and in a broader sense, to any natural or man-made disaster.
The popularity of the CDC article on the “zombie apocalypse” has led others to write their own, shedding light not only on disaster preparedness, but also on zombie ethics. Among them is a review article by Daniel O'Connor from Johns Hopkins University. In this article, O'Connor identified several bioethical problems (the threshold at which a person can no longer be considered a person, when and how to kill a zombie in a morally acceptable way, the ratio of risk and benefit for as many people as possible). The most effective strategies suggested taking into account the diverse opinions of the community, rather than transferring all decisions exclusively to the military, politicians, and health experts. Many of these bioethical principles are important in advancing intervention strategies for a variety of other diseases. However, O'Connor subtly emphasizes the precariousness of such guidelines in the face of real disasters that threaten to destabilize the health infrastructure itself. The article points to the clear need to provide assurances that public health standards will continue even in the event of an apocalyptic pandemic.
It has also been suggested that a virus similar to the rabies virus may become a threat similar to the zombie apocalypse. The authors of the article of the National Geographic Society called “Zombie Virus”: Can I Build Madness into the Flu Virus? ”Shed light on what they consider to be an irrational fear. First, there is a “mechanistic” barrier to creating the perfect zombie virus from the rabies virus. Contrary to the immediate start of zombies, the development of rabies in the body occurs in a period of 10 days to 1 year. There is also a genetic barrier: it is not yet known to science how to combine the two “independent” viruses. Despite the presence of state-of-the-art genetic engineering, which can “combine” the airborne “potential” of the influenza virus with the rabies virus, there is little certainty that such a virus can be viable under natural conditions.
But, if the “cocktail” of deadly viruses cannot yet imitate the features of zombies, are there any other microorganisms that can do this? The answer to this question is closer than one would expect. Just the wrong folding of proteins in the brain can lead to the creation of a whole family of such abnormalities, called "prions". Prions can eventually lead to brain disease (encephalopathy), which can lead to personality changes, loss of cognitive functions, and muscular twitching, characteristic signs of zombies. Fortunately, modern scientific evidence suggests that prions are not capable of causing the spread of epidemics. Having an incubation period of 12–18 months before death, prions do not seem to be a big threat, compared to the zombie apocalypse.
Governments can also be a barrier to zombie outbreaks, by isolating and controlling the source of such infections circulating in the world. However, some may argue that the government’s response to the zombie apocalypse can lead to discrimination against some of the population. But, we assume that a large part of our society relies on often false considerations, and in some cases even on satire, describing a non-functioning or poorly functioning state. Still, when we deal with outbreaks of diseases beyond our comprehension, we must first create a capable society that can effectively deal with outbreaks and solve civil problems.
findings
Zombies can be used as a powerful tool to raise awareness of public health issues. We propose to continue these efforts, build on the popularity of zombies in order to raise public awareness of health issues, as well as explore issues that were not previously taken into account (infection control, mental health issues, disease ethics, the potential of bio-terrorism).
Such is the article. But, it turns out that the CDC article is still about something else. After all, Tara S.Smith writes precisely about zombies, and not about zombie-like mass infections ...
( www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6423 )
Speaking of rabies: its natural carriers are squirrels and hedgehogs. The death of three squirrel breeders was recently registered in Germany. Be extremely careful yourself and take care of your children (“contact” zoos of “walking distance” are very popular now).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/367349/
All Articles