(Newser)
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Photos of Michael Jackson's children vacationing in Hawaii have revealed a strange patch of white skin under the right arm of oldest son Prince Michael, indicating that the boy may be suffering from the same skin-lightening condition as his father. Michael Jackson, who was often accused of bleaching his skin to appear whiter, revealed in an interview that he was being treated for vitiligo, which left him with patches of de-pigmented skin. A dermatologist and head of the National Vitiligo Foundation who studied recent photos of Prince Michael, 13, said the teen appears to be suffering from the condition.
Vitiligo is a genetic disorder, which might help convince skeptics that Jackson actually was the biological father of Prince Michael, as he said. "The odds of developing it spontaneously are 1%," one expert told ABC News, but the odds increase tenfold when a parent or immediate family member has the condition. Once depigmented lesions spread over 50% of a body, many people opt to bleach out the rest to match, as Michael Jackson apparently did. The Jackson family had no immediate comment. Joe Jackson has said his famous son showed signs of vitiligo at an early age, and that one of Michael's aunts had vitiligo as well.
