I mean, just look at the title: “You Might Be A Zombie and Other Bad News”

How exactly is that ‘bad news’, Cracked.com? For the blanket assumption that being a Zombie is somehow automatically ‘bad’ news alone, I think we can most likely peg this one as Anti-Zombie.

When you read the description, though, it seems like the book as a whole only lightly touches on Zombiism, and probably in the ‘Toxoplasmosis is eating your braaaaaaaaain’ line of reasoning that we’ve seen before from pop-science journalists. See this from the Amazon.com page for the book:

Some facts are too terrifying to teach in school. Unfortunately, Cracked.com is more than happy to fill you in:

* A zombie apocalypse? It could happen. 50% of humans are infected with a parasite that can take over your brain.

If they are talking about Toxoplasmosis (which is caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, an interesting creature whose primary host is cats), then the number of people infected varies a lot by country and the parasite is primarily transmitted by eating raw meat or not washing your hands. So cook your food and use soap and you’re pretty well off. Some apocalypse. In the US about 11% of adults have it, and you never even notice.

As of yet the evidence that Toxoplasmosis actually affects human behavior in serious ways isn’t all that firm, and it’s mostly very subtle things like slightly slowing reaction times or making people a bit moody. There’s some evidence linking it to schizophrenia too, and it can actually be quite dangerous to a fetus if contracted by the mother during pregnancy.

But, again, an apocalypse? According to the Discover piece in our last post about this, 80% of French people carry the parasite. Wikipedia says up to 88%. Do you see Paris in flames?

Well, OK, but any more than usual?

There’s just no ‘there’ there with this story. It’s a potentially serious parasitic disease that may contribute to quite a few deaths and possibly even some mental illness. None of which, by the way, resembles Zombies in any way. Once again for the benefit of the media: ‘Zombie’ is not a word for anything you don’t like. The very specific forms of mental control alleged in some traditional religious legends or Necromantic rituals don’t really resemble a guy who’s slightly moody and a bit slow to tap the brakes in his car.

We’re very disappointed in Cracked.com over this book.

Tags: Books, Don't Use the Zed Word, Journamalism

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.