Dr. Schlozman published a zombie book from a medical standpoint entitled The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse. The book is told in two parts, the first is a journal from a United Nations scientist being sent to a secret government location known as The Crypt on a mission to unravel the biggest medical mystery to ever threaten humankind, zombies. The second part is a series of notebooks and diaries with notations trying to make heads or tails of Blum's research and piece together the medical mystery they are left with. The clues to the infection are all within the text, it's just up to the reader to do some medical Sherlocking to figure it out... I did, and even had it confirmed by the Good Doctor himself.
(Read on to the very end of the article, highlight the text if you don't want to do the research yourself... I've done all that already... ye gods am I ever a geek to have actually sat and figured this out...)
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| Stages 1-4 of ANDS |
The Single Bullet Theory: You've come up with a medical classification for the infection we've previously called Romero's Disease or Shambler Syndrome or in short zombiism, ANDS, what does ataxic neurodegenerative satiety defeciency disorder mean in standard, non medical terms?
Dr. Steven Schlozman: So, for starters, its a syndrome. In medicine, when we don't have a clear understanding of the cause of something, but we note that a series of symptoms glop together more often than not and have a replicable natural history, we call it a syndrome or a disorder (as opposed to a disease). Kind of a silly distinction, since we also use these terms interchangeably, but still, with something new you tend to call it a syndrome, then later a disorder.
So, to break down the term, it is purely descriptive:
ataxic = lack of balance. zombies don't walk well
neurodengerative = they seem to have progressively worsening neurobiologically function, especially with regard to higher brian function (problem solving) and balance. Remember, these are particular to the slow moving zombies, tweaked to meet the needs of the story I made up for my book
satiety = the sense that you're full of food, that you eaten enough
deficiency = a short-coming
therefore, satiety deficiency = a short coming or failure in the body's ability to know that it has eaten enough
syndrome = when all this stuff hangs together consistently, it earns the term syndrome
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| ANDS up close and personal |
So are the humanoids "dead" or are they "infected" or both?
In my conceptualization, they are philosophically dead. I couldn't (though I tried) come up with any medical etiology for things rising from real death with any regularity. However, if everyone is infected, then everyone progresses through the stages of the zombie disease, and in my book religious and other spiritual leaders gather with policy makers and decide that the final stages of the zombie disease are equivalent to "philosophical death." They are as good as dead, and all that made them who they were (or anybody at all, really) is entirely gone. Hence, they're dead and funeral rites etc are now appropriate.
Are there any hopes of a cure? or perhaps domestication as one crazed theory suggests?
No domestication, but definitely hopes for a cure. The disease is caused by a contagion, and we're in general pretty good at either preventing altogether or at least slowing the progression of infectious processes. Some bugs are hard to control (think Ebola, or Bacterial Brain infections) In my book, a component of the disease is prion related (i.e. the things that cause Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). These aren't even alive - they're just proteins. They don't have DNA or RNA and are therefore one of the biggest mysteries of medicine. How do they become infectious? Why are they infectious? How do they reproduce? We know that prions are more likely to become dangerous to brain tissue when they fold rather than remain straight in shape. That happens more often in a low pH environment. In my book, we control the progression of the prions as they destroy brain material my manipulating our pH artificially. The higher (even dangerously high) our internal pH, the less active the prions. But then you have to deal with the unpleasant symptoms of high pH, which look somewhat like being a zombie without the hunger or rage. You have confusion, lack of balance, seizures, body twitches, etc with abnormally high pH.
Stage IV is the 'final' stage of ANDS, do you suppose there is any chance of further mutation of the disease?
Sure. Any micro-organisim evolves as a function of natural pressures (as we all do) but it takes thousands of generations for anything to allow evolution to stumble upon a random mutation where things work better than before. Because germs have short life spans, they can evolve more readily.
Brain function seems to be primitive at best, how do you explain the large groupings or "herds" of them? or certain instances of people being attacked with crude bludgeons (similar to apes leaning to use tools)? Are these the signs of animalistic behavior or are these individuals following the same stimulus?
The zombies I like (the slow shambling ones) can't do that stuff. You'd have to have higher brain function for the coordinated attacks, and you'd have to stumble on a hunting strategy similar to wolves; also, to use tools, you need higher brain function (think apes and sticks for getting termites) but then you'd have to lose the higher brain function that stops the aggressiveness. When I conceptualized the disease in my book, the brain deteriorates in such as way as to destroy the capacity for this higher brain functions.
I've heard the term protean used to describe similar infectious agents when describing zombiism, does ANDS follow a similar pattern? (Airborne to bloodborne to droplet transmission)
Protean means "displaying great variety" so I guess I'd say that zombies are the opposite of that. Prions are the infectious proteins I discussed above; I would definitely see prions as possible zombie contagion.
Due to the level of health found in the amygdala found in Stage IV humanoids, essentially we're dealing with crocodiles... is that correct?
All there is to a crocodile is the amygdala (in terms of higher brain function), but crocodiles are at least coordinated. The zombies are like drunk crocodiles.
In regards to other 'reported' outbreaks do you suppose there is connection between complex nature of infection with ANDS when compared to other causes such as the Tyrant and Rage viruses and the 245-Trioxin Gas?
They all share the capacity for rapid infection and then use of the host (the zombie) as means of spreading the disease.
As infants our cranial plates take time in fusing together, during Stage Iv dissection of humanoids the crown appears quite fragile due to hemorrhaging and inter-cranial pressure, could this be a potential Achille's Heel that could be exploited for combatative purposes?
Absolutely. They're skulls don't require much of a physical blow to get to the brain tissue and therefore destruction.
How did you come to love zombies enough to 'study' them?
Always loved zombie movies (love all horror, but love supernatural or imaginary horror more - i.e. not as into the Friday the 13th stuff), and zombies feel the most easily co-opted by a medically plausible account.
Do you have a favorite zombie movie?
SUCH A TOUGH QUESTION! still gotta go with the 1978 Dawn of the Dead. I think its one of the smartest, scariest, funniest, and poignant of all the zombie movies ever made. The social commentary is unmatched.
Are you prepared for the inevitable zombie apocalypse?
As a doctor and as a relatively humble human - gotta say that I worry about a whole lot more than zombies. We see always throughout history to be in the brink of something awful...war, massive destruction, uncontrolled pandemics, etc. Having said that, we've also been remarkably resilient as a species, and when we get our acts together we do pretty well. Think about this: when I was a kid, it was the middle of the Reagan-Soviet Cold War. We had enough nuclear bombs pointed at each other to blow up the entire freakin' world a zillion times. I didn't think we'd as a species allow my friends and me to see age 30. But still, here we are. We can survive if we keep our heads.
Regarding lungs and respiration: the lungs seem more or less healthy and Stage IV humanoids seem capable of vocalization, now when a human has a blow delivered to the solar plexus (a good old fashioned gut shot in other words) it drives the air out of the lungs and an involuntary reaction is to 'double over' as it were, do you suppose a similar reaction could be evoked with a Stage IV humanoid?
Great idea in terms of self defense - it would buy you time and allow you to take a lot at once. Still, any attempt to survive from one battle to the next is gonna require coordinated efforts.
Since the time of our interview, I had the opportunity to re-interview the Good Doctor and Jonathan Maberry at ZomBcon 2011 to further discuss the topic. George Romero has been working on a movie adaptation of Schlozman's book... as soon as we get a trailer or more definitive news you'll hear all about it here.
*SPOILERS*
Notes: I've actually grown quite interested in unraveling the ANSD puzzle, I think I may be on to something but what I'm not sure... I know this for sure though: It wasn't born, it was Borna as in Borna disease virus, it affects cats and birds and leads to proventricular dilation disease and would explain both the neurological and colonic issues. From there the disease jumps to humans in the form of Psittacosis, which if left untreated in humans it could lead to encephalitis, which is also a crossover symptom common with Rabies infections... also during rabies infections anti-viral immune cells are not allowed to enter the brain allowing the virus' reproduction and possibly breaking the blood/brain barrier would it be a safe assumption to say the myelin sheath of the brain is relatively nonexistant in the late stages of ANSD, correct? Demylination is a side effect from the usage of sheep dip as an insecticide too.
*END SPOILERS*
