Seeing Beyond Changing Skin Color

The "Michael Jackson" disease...more information on the unusual skin disease...perhaps some new genetics studies will shed more light in time...BD

A medical mystery doctors still don't fully understand made her skin color different from that of her brother and her parents. When people see them together, many assume the 14-year-old was adopted. With vitiligo, pigment cells that provide skin color are suddenly attacked by the body's immune system and destroyed one cell at a time. The disease affects people of both sexes and all races equally, but is much more noticeable in those with darker complexions. "We have patients who say, I got mono and then a month later I had white spots," said Dr. Nanette Silverberg, a vitiligo specialist at New York's Beth Israel Medical Center. "I've had a patient say, 'I got divorced, within a few weeks I had white spots on my skin.' There is no one universal factor."