Kirk Cameron Diagnosed with Rare Form of Leprosy-Fiction!

Kirk Cameron Diagnosed with Rare Form of Leprosy-Fiction! 

Summary of eRumor:
Actor, musician and outspoken Christian Kirk Cameron has a rare form of leprosy that turns people into walking piles of rotting flesh.
The Truth:
False reports that Kirk Cameron has a rare form of leprosy came from a self-described fake news website.
The report, which was published by Last Line of Defense on July 26, 2017, under the headline “Kirk Cameron Diagnosed With Rare Form Of Leprosy,” claims that Kirk Cameron had contracted a rare strain of leprosy known as “leprosis metapupalis carnivore” that turns its victims into “a walking pile of dead skin, rotting flesh, and festering organs,” continuing:

That kind of transformation in such a short period of time turns the victim insane, rendering them completely helpless to help themselves and often resisting — with extreme violence if necessary — anyone trying to assist them. Doctors on the case at Southern Utah Medical Center say that Cameron is “in the advanced stages” and that if they can find a cure, they’ll have less than a day to administer it:

“The problem is, there’s no research on the disease because not enough people have it. I mean, sure there would be enough data to do an analysis and it’s a fairly simple organism causing it, but still…why develop something that will do nothing but cost the shareholders money. To save a dozen people?”

A quick search of online medical databases reveals that there’s no such thing as leprosis metapupalis carnivore. There are three three different classifications of leprosy, which has been around since at least 600 B.C.  But the strain of the disease doesn’t determine the classification, the victim’s immune response to it does. Leprosis metapupalis carnivore is not one of the three classifications, and there’s no trace of that word outside of the article.
Still, many people were tricked into believing that Kirk Cameron has a rare form of leprosy because they didn’t view the disclaimer for Last Line of Defense, which identifies itself as “a satirical publication that may sometimes appear to be telling the truth” but “presents fiction as fact.”
So rumors that Kirk Cameron has leprosy and all reports from Last Line of Defense should be considered fiction.