Vitiligo and Michael Jackson

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Vitiligo is a skin disease in which there is a loss of pigment (color) from areas of skin, ending in abnormal patches that feel like normal skin. Vitiligo affects 0.5-1% of people worldwide. That means about two million people are affected by this disease in this country alone. Compared to how many people live on this earth , the number isn’t that large. It’s pretty rare to have this disease. One of the two million people that was affected by this disease was a music icon, the king of pop, Michael Jackson. Throughout his life, Michael’s appearance transformed, especially the color of his skin. The color of his skin became substantially lighter and in such little time. People were thinking the worst. While many believed that Michael Jackson’s changing complexion was due to a cosmetic choice, in actuality, his change was due to the skin disease, vitiligo. Vitiligo was and still is a real disease that many people all over the country and world have. Melanin, the pigment that figures out the color of skin, hair, and eyes, is made in cells called melanocytes. If these cells die or cannot produce melanin, the skin gets lighter or can become completely white. The patches can vary in size and places where it can be located on your body. There are many stages of vitiligo. Michael has gone through all of these stages. He did his best to cover it, which made people criticize him even more and say things like he bleached his skin, when what really happened was that he was coping with a disease as best as he could.

Vitiligo has been around for many, many years. “ Vitiligo has been described in medical literature for hundreds of years. The origination is unknown”, said Dr. Shane Morgan, a dermatologist from Lincoln, Rhode Island. Michael fir...

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