食人案引發殭屍話題 美闢謠稱殭屍並不存在

The horrific face-eating arrest in Miami and several other seemingly subhuman acts has many people wondering what's behind this flesh-munching wave of terror.

Over the years the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a couple of tongue-in-cheek "zombie warnings," which really are just disaster-preparedness stunts. But on Thursday, the agency made it official: Zombies don't exist.

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)," wrote agency spokesman David Daigle in an email to The Huffington Post.

Nevertheless, recent incidents in which humans reportedly ate human flesh have the Internet in a firestorm, with "zombie apocalypse" being Google's third most popular search term by Friday morning.

The zombie craze seemed to start with an attack in Miami on Saturday, when Rudy Eugene, 31, was killed by cops while in the process of eating almost the entirety of a homeless man's face off. The victim, Ronald Poppo, miraculously survived, but doctors are having a hard time figuring out how to put his face back together.

Then, on Tuesday, 21-year-old Alexander Kinyua of Maryland allegedly admitted to dismembering his roommate and then eating his heart and brain.

Cops in Canada are also searching for a low-budget porn actor who allegedly killed a young man with an ice pick, dismembered the body and then raped and ate flesh from the corpse. Luka Rocco Magnotta is being hunted after he allegedly mailed some of the body parts to Ottawa. He's also accused of killing cats on video and posting the footage online.

Gawker fingered a "mysterious rash" breakout at a high school in Hollywood and other parts of Florida -- which hazmat and disease control teams still can't explain -- as further proof that zombies are taking over.

Zombie-like characteristics have been confirmed in the animal kingdom, just not in humans. A newfound fungus in a Brazilian rain forest -- called Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani -- is known to infect an ant, take over its brain so as to move the body to a good location for growth, and then kill the insect.

Yet Daigle dismissed "fictional viruses" like Ataxic Neurodegenrative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, noting that other triggers have been alleged to cause zombie-like symptoms.

"Films have included radiation as well as mutations of existing conditions such as prions, mad-cow disease, measles, and rabies," he said.美國邁阿密駭人聽聞的“裸男吃臉案”，和其它多起吃人案使許多民衆懷疑事件背後是否有“殭屍”作祟。

過去數年來，美國疾控中心（CDC）多次發佈半開玩笑的“殭屍預警”，實際上僅是防災噱頭。但上週四，CDC正式宣佈：殭屍並不存在。

CDC發言人大衛-戴格在給《赫芬頓郵報》的電郵中寫道：“CDC並不知道有病毒或條件能讓人死而復生（或是造成類似殭屍的症狀）。”

然而，近期多起人吃人的案件已在網絡上引發熱議，“殭屍啓示錄”上週五上午成爲谷歌第三大熱搜詞。

“殭屍狂熱”始於週六邁阿密的食人案。31歲的魯迪•尤金在啃食一名無家可歸的男子的臉部時被警察擊斃，受害者羅納德•普普整張臉幾乎全被啃掉，但奇蹟般地活了下來。醫生們正想法恢復他的面部。

緊接着的週二，馬里蘭州21歲的亞歷山大•金約承認肢解了室友，吃掉了受害者的心臟和大腦。

加拿大警察還在搜捕一位低成本色情片的演員，據稱他用冰錐殺死了一名年輕男子，對受害者實施了肢解、辱屍、並吃掉部分屍體的慘無人道的行爲。嫌疑人盧卡•羅科•馬尼奧塔把部分屍體郵寄到了渥太華，之後遭到搜捕。他還拍攝了虐殺小貓的視頻，並上傳到網站。

八卦網站Gawker指出，佛羅里達州好萊塢某高中和該州其它部分地區爆發“神祕的皮疹”疫情，就連危險物質和疾病控制單位也無法解釋，網站以此進一步佐證殭屍正接管世界。

類殭屍特徵已在動物界得到證實，但人類世界則不存在。巴西熱帶雨林新發現的一種名爲Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani的真菌能夠感染螞蟻，控制螞蟻的腦部，讓它們往適合這類真菌生長的地點移動，之後便殺死螞蟻。

但戴格駁斥世界上存在類似共濟失調神經退化飽腹感缺乏綜合症的“虛構病毒”，並指出其它因素據稱也會引發類似殭屍的症狀。

他說：“根據多部電影，輻射以及朊病毒、瘋牛病、麻疹和狂犬病等現有病情突變也會造成類似殭屍的症狀。”