On the Discovery Channel, Ziya Tong concluded a segment of Ziyology about zombies by stating that it is unlikely for humans to become ‘zombified’. That is not correct. The truth is that by standard definitions of the term “zombie”, there are already plenty of zombies in our society and more and more people are becoming zombified all the time (in fact Maria Shriver was part of a Larry King special in which it was called a full on epidemic). The infecting agent in this case: beta-amyloid plaque.
A person with Alzheimer’s disease is in every way a zombie. In fact, the only missing aspect of the traditional monster is the aggressiveness, which can easily be filled in by the addition of rabies (witness Cujo).
So there you have it; a zombie is nothing more than a person who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease (progressive) who contracts rabies. Since a zombie is a mindless, uncommunicative creature who is violent and driven by nothing more than the basest instincts, these two diseases can (and probably have somewhere, sometime) create real-life zombies.