Accusations

In 1993 Michael Jackson would "finally begin an attempt to shed his media shy image, becoming more accessible to the media
and the public." He performed the Superbowl halftime, he did an unprecedented 90 minute interview with Oprah Winphrey and
then was presented with the Grammy Living Legend Award. People were actually seeing more of him than he had allowed in a long
time. But the media cooing would shortly turn to the sound of rabid animals after blood.

August 17, 1993

...[after searching his home and taking several boxes of photographs and videotapes] "A source from the police department
told the Los Angeles Times, "There's no medical evidence, no taped evidence...The search warrant didn't result in anything
that would support a criminal filing.

"With no evidence to be found, investigators from the police department's Sexual Exploited Child Unit, who were leading the
investigation, then concentrated on interviewing other youngsters who are friends of Michael's in an attempt to find someone
who would corroborate the boy's story. The thirteen year old boy gave authorities the names of four boys he said he believed
were also molested by Michael Jackson. These four, all said to be well known friends of Michael's, included child actor Macaulay
Culkin. Culkin was questioned by police and he stated there was never any inappropriate behavior by Michael Jackson. The others
boys questioned by police also said there was never any improper conduct by Michael.

...Michael Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, surprisingly, consistently supported Michael and the claims of extortion,
'I've seen so many extortion attempts against the Jackson camp and they never turnout to be worth anything.' Taraborrelli
told Time magazine that in researching his book on Jackson, 'every damn butler, housekeeper, chauffeur and chef wanted $

100,000 for their insights into his private life. I've written about Diana Ross, Cher, Carol Burnett, and Roseanne Arnold,
but I never had that experience with any of my other books. And that was just me, a biographer. You can imagine what it's
like for him with his millions.'

...It was learned that the boy's father, let's call him Evan Chandler, was a Beverly Hills dentist who wished he was a screenwriter.
He had recently had a screenplay made into a movie that was based on an idea of his son's. The boy's parents, married in 1974,
divorced in 1985 and were both now remarried and were involved in a bitter custody battle for the boy. It was also learned
that Chandler was delinquent in his child support payments by $ 68,400.

...The boy's mother, who was with the boy on his visits with Michael, first learned of the allegations from police, not from
her son or his father, and was completely shocked. She said she had no indication anything untoward was going on.

Numerous experts in the field of child abuse, and experts in family law, pointed out that the bitter custody battles such
as this one were often used to levy false child abuse allegations to gain advantage in the case. In this case, the father
wanted to regain custody of his son who had been missing scheduled weekend visits with his father so he could spend time at
Neverland. One expert pointed out "there are therapists who interview children in ways that are leading, suggestive and coercive;
they are the validators of sexual abuse charges." A lawyer added, "You're looking at a thirteen year old child in the middle
of a custody fight. These children are the least reliable witnesses of all, because they're being torn between pleasing two
parents. They're trying to protect themselves. Often children side with one parent or the other and say what that parent wants
to hear."

...But what doesn't fit in this case is that the boy repeatedly chose to visit Neverland over scheduled visits with his father...Jordy
then complained that his father always wanted him to sit in the house and write screenplays, and that his father just wanted
money. [Jordy made these statements during an interview with investigator Anthony Pellicano.]

...It was reported that Chandler asked Michael Jackson to set him up with film projects in the amount of $ 5 million per
year for four years, for a total of $ 20 million, or he would go public with child abuse allegations. When his offer was
refused by Michael Jackson, the father became furious.

...Evan Chandler had demanded that the boy be allowed to visit him for the week of July 11. At the end of the week, he refused
to return the boy to his mother...The attorney representing the boy's mother, filed a petition in court demanding the return
of her son. The judge ordered Evan Chandler to return the boy to his mother by 6:00 p.m. on August 17...

That very morning [of the judge's ruling in favor of the boy's mother,] Chandler took his son to a therapist, where he [Mr.
Chandler] proceeded to describe the alleged relationship, in detail, with Michael Jackson. The therapist then reported the
allegations to Child and Family Services, as is required by California law. That, not a complaint by the father, instigated
the criminal investigation against Michael Jackson. It is doubtful the father realized the therapist would be obligated to
make the report to the police, he hadn't yet finished negotiating his movie deal [with his son's supposed molestor!]

...The outpouring of support for Michael was truly overwhelming. Many went public with vehement support of Michael. People
who have worked with Michael for many years made public statements of their knowlege that Michael is incapable of ever hurting
a child. Jerry Kramer, who worked with Michael on The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, and Moonwalker, told the Today
Show he didn't believe this was something Michael Jackson would do. He said further that he has only ever seen very normal
behavior with Michael Jackson and children. Entertainment lawyer Sheldon Platt, who is Whitney Houston's attorney, explained
that entertainers are perfect targets for extortion. He also expressed concern that when allegations are first made public
they are treated as big, front page news. When they are later retracted or found to be false, it is treated by the media as
no big deal and is buried in the middle of the newspaper.

Alfonso Ribeiro, who first met Michael when he was twelve, also expressed his support for Michael. He now stars in the Quincy
Jones produced series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air as Carlton Banks. Mothers of young children who have spent time with Michael,
including Ryan White's mother Jeanne, spoke out that they implicitly trusted Michael with their children. Michael Jackson
biographers J. Randy Taraborrelli and Lisa Campbell each appeared on news programs and each stated their beliefs, through
studying Michael's life for several years, that he wasn't capable of committing the acts of which he was accused. Taraborrelli
said in researching Jackson's life he found that 'there have been many, many accusations against Michael Jackson and none
of them ever panned out, never found one instance that came to be even remotely true.'

...Gloria Allred, an attorney hired on August 31 to represent the boy, held a press conference on September 2 declaring that,
'my client wants to have his day in court.' Within a few days of her assertion about her client that, 'he is ready, he is
willing, he is able to testify.', she withdrew from the case and refused to disclose why...

Immediately after Gloria Allred was replaced, the boy's new lawyer, Larry Feldman, filed a civil suit in Los Angeles Superior
Court accusing Michael Jackson of battery, infliction of emotional distress and fraud. The suit asked for unspecified monetary
damages...Some attorneys, not connected with the case, speculated that the filing of the civil case would kill the criminal
case once the jury became aware that the plaintiffs are only interested in money. It would take much more than this however
for the police investigators to give up on their investigation. Despite having no physical evidence and no corroboration for
the boys allegations, the criminal investigation would continue for several months.

...While one year earlier they [Mark and Faye Quindoy] described Michael to Geraldo's audience as a very nice man, they had
now suddenly obtained a diary which they held at a press conference which they claimed they had kept while working at the
ranch in which they described various qustionable acts by "MJ". A very important thing to point out here is that, like so
many others in this media fiasco, the Quindoys first told, and sold, their story to A Current Affair and did not take anything
to the police. And then the police went to them, they did not take their "information" [seemingly vital to the criminal case]
to any authorities. In response to the Quindoy's media blitz with their "diary", two detectives, Federico Sicard and Deborah
Linden, flew to Manila to question them. They were found to be worthless as witnesses...Glen Veneracion, a law student and
nephew to the Quindoys, told interviewers his aunt and uncle were opportunists and they were an embarrassment...Veneracion
was willing to testify in any court proceedings, 'I'd be willing to step forward in a court of law and make these allegations.'

...Dr Bonnie Maslin, a psychotherapist, told Geraldo that you must know a person before making any judgements as to if they
are capable of such an act, 'I'll ring the neck of any professional who answers that question. Because what you are doing
is applying armchair psychology to a person you simply don't know. You're taking gossip and turning it into fact.'

...Even though McCartney and Michael have often disagreed on how best to administer the copyrights in the Beatle catalog,
McCartney defended Michael in an interview with an Argentine newspaper, Clarin, 'Linda and I are parents, and it's clear to
us that Michael is not that kind of person.'

...Frank Dileo, in his first public statement since being fired as Michael's manager in 1990, supported Michael telling Rolling
Stone, 'I would trust my own children with him, and have....He lived in my house in Encino for seven months. There is no way
that he did that. It's not in his nature.'

Bruce Swedian, a recording engineer and producer who has worked with Michael for seventeen years, told Rolling Stone, 'I am
mortified and disgusted by what has been reported with no evidence of anything untoward. Michael is one of the most decent
people I've ever met in my life. These allegations are preposterous.'

...Teddy Riley said, 'Michael's coming back. As a friend I say to him, 'We're all behind you.' Quincy Jones added, 'It's awful
the way things have been exaggerated. He's been indicted before he's had a chance to say anything.'

...The criminal investigation past the mid October date at which the police had earlier said they expected to be ended. They
continued interviewing young boys in hopes of finding somebody to corroborate Jordy's allegations. Eventually questioning
forty to sixty boys, not one corroborated the allegations...The police reportedly even resorted to lying to the young boys
in an effort to get them to admit to something. Michael's attorney, Bert Fields, learned of this and fired off a letter on
October 28, to Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams:

I am advised that your officers have told frightened youngsters outrageous lies, such as, 'We have nude photos of you', to
push them into making accusations against Mr. Jackson. There are, of course, no such photos of these youngsters, and they
have no truthful allegations to make. But your officers appear ready to employ any device to generate potential evidence against
Mr. Jackson.

THE ISSUE OF MICHAEL'S DEPENDANCY UPON PAIN MEDICATION

Michael had recently undergone surgery on his scalp for scar tissue as a result of the burn suffered years earlier during
the Pepsi commercial filming. He was prescribed the pain medicine due to that surgery. With the molestation allegations and
the rigorous world tour schedule - he developed a problem.

The doctor who treated Mr. Jackson sent a letter to the press to 'refute any suggestion that Mr. Jackson is 'hiding out' or
seeking any other care other than the program for analgesia abuse. No other medical, surgical or psychological condition exists....’Mr.
Jackson was presented to me on Friday evening 12th November 1993 by Dr. David Forecast and Miss Elizabeth Taylor, after their
trip from Mexico City...An initial assessment of Mr. Jackson's condition was made. A detoxification program was completed
today. After an initial 36 hours, Mr. Jackson's started an intensive program of group therapy and one-to-one therapy with
myself.'

On December 22, 1993 Michael issued a long awaited statement which was carried live on CNN, E!, and MTV from his Neverland
ranch. Here are excerpts which show the humiliation that he suffered:

“...I have been forced to submit to a dehumanizing and humiliating examination by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department
and the Los Angeles Police Department earlier this week. They served a search warrant on me which allowed them to view and
photograph my body, including my pxxxs, my buttocks, my lower torso, thighs, and any other areas they wanted. They were supposedly
looking for any discoloration, spotting, blotches or other evidence of a skin disorder called vitiligo which I have previously
spoken about.

...The warrant further stated that I had no right to refuse the examination or photographs...It was the most humiliating ordeal
of my life - one that no person should ever have to suffer...It was a nightmare, a horrifying nightmare.” [Not exactly the
rich buying their way out.]

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CIVIL SUIT
BOTH SIDES insisted that the settling of the civil action would have no impact on the continuing criminal investigation, that
“no one’s silence was bought”. However, having gotten the cash they were after, there was no motivation for the boy to testify
in any criminal action....

Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti maintained however that the settlement of the civil suit did not affect the criminal
investigation. He refused to give up on the now five month investigation that so far had yielded no evidence to jusify filing
criminal charges against Michael Jackson...

...As soon as the civil suit was settled, Jordy refused to cooperate with prosecutors. Nothing in the settlement prevented
the boy from testifying in any criminal proceeding. Chandler could have had the money and cooperated with efforts to prosecute
Michael...It was learned through Pellicano [investigator] that Chandler, from the very beginning, wanted to secure several
film deals so he could then dissolve his dental practice and work on his screenplays full time. Shortly after the settlement
in the civil suit was reached, Chandler left his dental practice.... Now that he had a few million bucks lining his pocket
there was no motivation to testify in any criminal proceeding. They had already gotten waht they wanted, money. Therefore
Garcetti had to try to change the law of California to force the boy to testify!

There has been no indication from Chandler that he was ever interested in Michael Jackson being punished for waht he had supposedly
done to his boy, no indication that Chandler was interested in getting his boy’s life back on track, no indication in justice
at all, only money. The civil suit, asking for monetary damages was filed against Michael as soon as the allegations became
public and Chandler lost all hope of getting his proposed private settlement offer. At the time the allegations first came
up Chandler arranged meetings with attorneys and representatives of Michael Jackson and Michael himself to discuss a settlement.
He did not go to the police. He did not file any criminal complaint. He asked for money.

...Many pointed out that Michael paid the boy off to avoid having to go to trial and testify under oath. But by settling the
suit Michael is not the only one who avoided testifying in court. It is a safe bet that Michael was not the only one involved
who dreaded that thought of telling their story under oath. Surely, neither party was as eager to go to court as they my have
indicated publicly. Imagine the attention a court trial would have drawn to Michael. Details of the most intimate aspects
of his personal life, his sexual history, the photos of his nude body, his medical history, and God knows what else would
have been paraded through every persons living room throughout the world for days, weeks, and months on end. Court TV’s CEO
Steven Brill had even expressed an interest in carrying the trial live on television. The tabloid shows would have fed off
of that for months. It isn’t hard to imagine why Michael would want to avoid that.

...Michael didn’t have to shove his money down Chandler’s throat. He willingly took the money, it was what he had been after
for months. As for the scales of justice bending his way, there has been no instance in which Michael Jackson was given any
special treatment due to his fame or his wealth. But it certainly seemed to bring him undue public scrutiny and the automatic
assumption of guilt.

...Still another fact that many were unaware of, is that 95% of all civil cases are settled without going to court. In fact,
the law encourages the parties involved to do so. This civil case being settled out of court, therefore, is by no means unusual.”

Thanks to Michael Jackson: The King of Pop's Darkest Hour by Lisa D. Campbell. Branden Publishing Co. 1994 for the preceeding
excerpts.

I for one am totally convinced that Michael Jackson could never do such dispicable things to a child - and destroy the very
innocence that he loves about them. If there is still any shadow of a doubt as to the true motivation behind the entire scandal
over Michael Jackson’s friendship with Jordy Chandler, please read the following:

MICHAEL JACKSON: NEW LAWSUIT, SAME ACCUSER

June 11, 1996 SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) - Pop star Michael Jackson, as well as several people and corporations associated
with him, must contend with another multi-million dollar lawsuit from the father of a boy who accused Jackson of sexually
molesting him.

The original molestation lawsuit was filed in September 1993 and was reportedly settled in January 1994 for several million
dollars. Jackson was never charged with a crime.

Now, the man claims Jackson has violated the terms of the settlement by speaking and singing about the ordeal. The suit is
seeking in excess of $ 60 million dollars from Michael Jackson, Sony Music and ABC/Capital Cities.

The plaintiff, not identified by CNN because his son was only 13 when he originally sued, filed the new lawsuit May 7 at the
Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, California. It was unsealed Monday.

In addition to Jackson, the suit names as defendants the singer’s ex-wife, Lisa Marie Presley, Sony Music, the Walt Disney
Company, ABC/Capital Cities, Inc. and Diane Sawyer, among others.

TELEVISED DENIALS

The plaintiff claims Jackson intentionally breached the confidentiality agreement when he tried to rehabilitate his image
and career on ABC’s “Prime Time Live,” hosted by Sawyer, in June 1994. Lisa Marie Presley appeared with him in what was their
first interview after their marriage.

On the show both celebrities denied the allegations of child molestation, and Jackson said the reports he settled for many,
many millions were untrue.

MULTIPLE CLAIMS

The plaintiff is seeking an amount in excess of the $ 60 million he claims the broadcaster mad on the show. He also filed
libel and slander charges, and claims the show, its guests, and its host cast him and his son in a false light.

The plaintiff is also seeking an amount in excess of the profits he claims Sony has made by selling Jackson’s latest recording,
“HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book One.” Sony has not released exact figures of sales.

Furthermore, the plaintiff says some song lyrics, including “They Don’t Care About Us,” “This Time Around,” and “Money” are
a breech of the settlement and a “means to commercially exploit” the lawsuit.

He claims the lyrics are malicious and caused him and his son great harm and suffering, loss of reputation and emotional damage.

The plaintiff is also asking for injunctive relieff--meaning he wants the sale of “HIStory” stopped.

Included in the 13 kinds of damages the plaintiff is suing for is a charge that the plaintiff has received death threats from
Jackson fans who think he is an extortionist.

END QUOTE

Many people are confused by Michael's pale skin complexion. It has even been said that Mr. Jackson doesn't want to be an African
American! On the contrary, Michael is proud of his heritage as he willing stated in the Oprah interview.

The answer is very simple, he has stated several times that he suffers from a heriditary skin disease known as Vitiligo. Vitiligo
literally strips the skin of its pigmentation - turning it not pink, but stark porceline white.

He wears a mask often times when outside (or uses an umbrella) because Vitiligo makes his skin even more sensitive to the
sun (you might say allergic to the sun.) Actually long sleeves and a hat are standard for him. He has stated that he inherited
this skin disease from his father's side of the family and because it results in splotches of discolored skin, he uses makeup
to even the complexion so it isn't unsightly.

Michael's Vitiligo covers roughly 80% of his body now, therefore he wears very light makeup for coverage. Yes, there are even
some extremely rare photos of Michael that show the splotches of existing brown patches. Even one of his music videos shows
the splotches for a short 5 seconds. It is real, not chemically induced.

He has also stated that the condition set in around the time of the "Thriller" album. The following article explains the skin
disease and its emotional impact very clearly. PLEASE take the time to read it.

PALE BY COMPARISON (skin condition called vitiligo)
Author: Jim Atkinson
TEXAS MONTHLY, MARCH 1996 v24, n3 p52
Abstract: Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and singer Michael Jackson are among the people who have vitiligo, a
disease in which the skin loses pigment. The pain of the disease is emotional rather than physical. Psoralen ultraviolet A
(PUVA) treatment can restore some pigment.

Subjects: Vitiligo - Care and treatment
People: Price, John Wiley - Health aspects Jackson, Michael (Musician)

FIVE YEARS AGO Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price got just about the worst news imaginable for a man who makes his
living as a black activist: He was slowly but surely turning white. Price had gone to his doctor after noticing that discolored
blotches were spreading under his arms, in his groin, and around his ankles and wrists. He assumed they were a result of a
temporary skin infection or perhaps a reaction to the sun, but they turned out to be something more serious: He had the symptoms
of vitiligo, a common condition in which portions of the skin are progressively robbed of their pigment cells, leaving unsightly
porcelain-white blotches all over the body. The condition is treatable but not curable, his doctor told him, and it might
be fully progressive, meaning that at some point the man who recently called a Hispanic foe a "coconut" (brown on the outside,
white on the inside) could be as fair skinned as any Hispanic-- or any white, for that matter. "I thought I'd done everything
right," the 45-year-old says today with a slightly nervous laugh. "I thought, -God, please don't do this to me.'"

The disease that afflicts Price and an estimated 1 to 2 percent of the world's population has been around for centuries--long
enough, at least, for the Hindus to have branded it a form of the dreaded leprosy and to regard its sufferers as social outcasts
(it's difficult for Hindu women with vitiligo to get married). Only recently has it permeated the public consciousness, however,
thanks to pop star Michael Jackson. It had long been believed that Jackson's milky skin tone was a cosmetic affectation, but
in 1993 word leaked that he suffered from vitiligo, which was quickly rechristened "Michael Jackson's disease" and became
the stuff of jokes on late-night TV. (Indeed, it was Jackson's vitiligo that furthered the Los Angeles Police Department's
suspicions that he had been a child molester; a thirteen-year-old accuser allegedly had identified distinctive skin markings
on Jackson's [male reproductive organ].)

Yet even with Jackson's name--and, less publicly, the names of other celebrities, ranging from actor Dudley Moore to Palestinian
Authority and Council chairman Yasir Arafat--attached to it, vitiligo remains something of a mystery. It is known that the
disease can strike at any age, though half of those affected see symptoms before age twenty. It tends to erupt and then remit
in cycles. Left untreated, it can render its victim a de facto albino and, if the depigmented skin is not properly protected
from sunlight, increase the risk of skin cancer. It has a hereditary linkage: 30 percent of vitiligo cases are inherited.
It is generally classified as an autoimmune disorder, meaning that something triggers the immune system to identify normal
skin pigment cells as dangerous invaders and gobble them up, though it has also been associated with stress and can appear
or spread more quickly in areas of the skin that have been traumatized by a scratch or a burn. But beyond those scattered
notions, a firm grasp of the condition's pathogenesis continues to escape dermatologists--even at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where Price and many other Texans with the condition are treated.

About the only thing that is certain about vitiligo is that its sufferers endure a great deal. Not physically--it isn't potentially
fatal or even painful, and it isn't disabling in any significant way-- but mentally: The disease creates disfiguring skin
splotches that can be severely embarrassing, especially in a culture that tends to associate beauty and even good health with
suntanned skin. "When I realized I really had it bad, I felt that my life was over," says 66-year-old Tyler oilman Allen Locklin,
whose condition was diagnosed fifty years ago. "Everything I enjoyed was out of doors. The more tanned you get with this,
the more it shows. I just became a recluse for two years."

Actually, vitiligo tends to look worse than it really is. Though to a layman it can resemble leprosy or some form of jungle
rot, it is not infectious and has nothing to do with poor hygiene. Its most insidious aspect may be its tendency to sneak
up surreptitiously on its victim, first in areas of the body that he may not inspect carefully on a daily basis: under the
arms and in the groin area; around ankles, wrists, and elbows; on the flanks of the midsection. "I couldn't really even see
how bad I looked until spring or summer, when I got a tan," says 39-year-old Dallas public relations agency owner Susan Carter.
"Even then, it was usually in areas that are covered by clothing."

Carter's first encounter with vitiligo was in 1984, when she noticed an odd whitish blotch on the inside of her thigh. It
appeared so benign that she thought it must be a stain from sun screen. After a while, though, it didn't go away, and her
doctor told her she had vitiligo, a malady that sounded like some awful tropical virus. It wasn't nearly as bad as all that,
but in time she discovered that it was far from good. Dermatologists at Dallas' Presbyterian Hospital told her the disease
was of unknown origin and essentially incurable. Restoring the lost pigment would require taking the drug psoralen, which
stirs repigmentation but has unpleasant side effects, including nausea and dizziness. She would then have to carefully tan
the depigmented portions of her body for at least a year.

Despite the time and trouble involved, Carter gave the treatment a fair chance. But the side effects were as harsh as promised,
and the so-called PUVA (psoralen ultraviolet A) treatment didn't seem to work all that well, so after a year she quit. "I'd
noticed the vitiligo had stopped spreading," she says. "Since it was mostly in inconspicuous places, I decided I could live
with it if it didn't come back and get any worse."

It took ten years, but it did come back, and it did get worse: It re-erupted not only in discreet regions of Carter's body
but also at the comers of her mouth and eyes, on her neck, and on the backs of her hands. Luckily, by 1994 PUVA treatments
had been refined at certain dermatological clinics to the point that 70 percent of pigmentation could be restored. One of
those clinics was at Southwestern Medical Center, where assistant professor of dermatology Amit Pandya had turned PUVA treatment
into an art. Carter visited Pandya and was given two options. She could repigment the portions of her body that had lost pigment
cells. Or she could choose to depigment--to allow the disease to run its full course--and live with the consequences: She
might have a pigmentless, milky complexion for the rest of her life; or if the disease stopped at, say, 50 percent depigmentation,
her skin might be a permanent mix of white and fleshtone.

Even though many vitiligo sufferers (including, apparently, Michael Jackson) opt for simply living with the disease, Carter
chose repigmentation treatment. The disease had spread to her face and neck: She felt she had no choice. Three times a week,
Carter faithfully submitted to her course of treatment: She would visit Pandyals clinic, disrobe, stand in a small cubicle,
and "tan" her splotchy body under a special UVA light--which is gentler than the sun's UVB light--for up to five minutes.
Improvement was excruciatingly slow, but within months she could see that the milky white blotches on her neck and forearms
were turning pink, then flesh tone. On two occasions, however, her skin got an overdose of the ultraviolet light, and she
wound up with the most nettlesome, painful sunburn of her life. "It was like the tissue beneath the actual skin was burned,"
she says. "It would tingle and burn and itch. It was awful. It went on for weeks."

Pain aside, Pandya says those PUVA treatments are the most effective antidote for vitiligo (though minor cases can be treated
with steroids, and advanced cases may require skin grafts). The procedure was developed at Harvard University in the seventies
as a way to combat psoriasis, though the use of the Ammi majus plant (from which psoralen is derived) as a skin therapy dates
back to ancient Egyptian times. Scientists found that dosages ralen combined with brief exposures to ultraviolet light could
literally repigment skin stripped of pigment by vitiligo. The key to making the therapy successful, Pandya says, was correctly
calibrating the amount of exposure to the UVA light and, more important, tempering patients, expectations. Even the gentler
UVA light, if imprudently administered, can promote certain benign and malignant skin tumors in tender, recently repigmented
skin. "We make an effort to let patients know that this will be a long, slow process," Pandya says. "It may be a month before
they even see the skin turn pinkish. At that, it probably won't be one hundred percent successful, and it requires constant
maintenance."

That's because dermatologists like Pandya are still largely at a loss when it comes to combating the cause of vitiligo, even
if they're better at dealing with the symptoms. The disease seems to operate like the ordinary sinus allergy, in which the
immune system misreads even innocuous matter entering the respiratory system as dangerous and foreign and begins producing
histamine to purge it from the body. In much the same way, immune cells in the skin of vitiligo sufferers seem to misread
normal pigment cells and destroy them with dispatch. "It's like a glitch in the immune system," Pandya says.

Vitiligo is also one of a burgeoning number of diseases in which the "collateral psychological overlay" of the ailment is
as bad as, if not worse than, the disease itself. Pandya says that most of the forty or so vitiligo patients he and his associates
see at the Southwestern outpatient clinic suffer from some degree of emotional trauma related to the condition. Take the teenager
who came to him suffering not only from vitiligo but from severe social underdevelopment--extreme shyness and lack of self-esteem--as
a consequence of the disease. After a year's worth of PUVA treatments and the resulting repigmentation, the patient has blossomed
socially. "It's not nearly as bad here as in India," says Pandya, who was born in Bombay. "There, people with vitiligo are
treated so badly that skin grafting is one of the leading surgical procedures by dermatologists in that country. But still,
here in the States, the way vitiligo makes you look can create extraordinary pressure."

Indeed, it was the psychological overlay caused by vitiligo that prompted Allen Locklin to try to help sufferers like himself
back in 1985. Medical science had by then begun to refine the PUVA treatment, but Locklin sensed that that wasn't enough.
He had lived with the disease since he was a teenager--through the dark days, when all doctors could prescribe was makeup,
then through the uncertain early days of PUVA treatment, before it became the exacting process it is today. "I know the way
I felt before I made a commitment to go forward with the treatments," he says. "I felt like there was a lot of misinformation
out there about vitiligo, and people needed someplace-they could find out the facts about it."

Learning that no such private organization for vitiligo sufferers existed anywhere in the nation, Locklin did what Texas oilmen
often do in such cases: He and his wife, Nancy, co-founded the National Vitiligo Foundation, headquartered in Tyler. A decade
later, the foundation has fielded some 40,000 contacts from vitiligo sufferers; it also sends out a semiannual newsletter
on the disease to some three thousand doctors and patients and provides help to vitiligo support groups. The Locklins have
poured about $ 80,000 of their own money into the cause and, through other fundraising efforts, have helped to bankroll about
$ 600,000 in new research on the disease.

John Wiley Price has his own antidote for the emotional upheaval brought on by the disease-- which, he notes, can be all the
more severe for non-whites. "I just fight it back," he says. "I must have set a record for time spent in that tanning booth."
Price visits Pandyals clinic three times a week and spends thirty minutes each day under the light. So far it has paid off:
About 95 percent of his pigment has been restored.

Price's dedication is laudable, though many vitiligo patients find maintaining the therapy simply too time-consuming and expensive;
a regimen like his can cost several thousand dollars a year. Locklin, for example, has ended his PUVA treatments after years
of therapy and is playing tennis and golf in long sleeves and pants. He may return to them, however, because at present they're
the only thing he can count on. As with many autoimmune disorders, medical science continues its steady march toward discovering
the glitch in the DNA that causes vitiligo and may one day treat the disease with gene therapy.

Susan Carter, for her part, has also stopped her PUVA treatments after two years of therapy and a 60 percent restoration of
the pigment in the affected areas of her skin. "My progress seemed to have plateaued," she says, "and I was just sick and
tired of it." But like other sufferers of Michael Jackson's disease, she has accepted the unpleasant reality. "Come this summer,
I'm sure I'll resume," she admits. "What choice do I have?"

SO...now you know! Vitiligo--or "Michael Jackson's Disease", whatever you call it - it is an emotionally traumatic skin disease
that strips the coloring (pigmentation) from your skin. We aren't talking just pale, but stripped of any color at all - porcelin
white. SO that's why Michael Jackson wears heavy makeup and a mask occasionally! I can only imagine with how very sensitive
of an individual as Mr. Jackson is, how difficult this must be for him. This is undoubtedly why he doesn't speak out much
about it. SEE, it's nothing warped, weird, bizarre or sinister. BUT, it does require some compassion FROM YOU. It should never
be the topic of jokes. It requires understanding, not slamming!