Michael Jackson's health: Protecting privacy or crying wolf?

December 21, 4:00 PMScam ExaminerKarin Malchow

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The Celebrity News Examiner reports Michael Jackson has an Alpha-1 antitypsin deficiency, according to Jackson's new biographer Ian Halperin.

A1AD is a hereditary disorder that can lead to loss of lung elasticity, susceptibility to inflammation and ultimately emphysema or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).  After the World Trade Center attack, researchers found lung function declined rapidly in exposed rescue workers with this deficiency. The American College of Chest Physicians estimates 150,000 cases in North America, with only 5 percent diagnosed. 

Presumably, this is the illness Jackson's representatives cryptically referenced in November 2008 when stating Jackson could not testify in the London breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by a Bahrain prince.  (The $7 million suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.)

Jackson has pleaded illness through surrogates on numerous occasions (not counting the alleged skin-bleaching/vitiligo and corrective/cosmetic surgery.)  Spider bites reportedly caused his nonappearance during a 2002 fraud/breach-of-contract suit, and there were two trips to the hospital during his 2005 child molestation trial (an acquittal), including a pajama-clad trip to court.

It's not like Jackson invented the celebrity medical mystery tour.  His friend and mentor Elizabeth Taylor routinely suffered nervous exhaustion, injuries and sudden hospitalizations coinciding with personal and career crises and addiction.

Without wishing Jackson ill, revelations regarding his medical condition raise questions. Are some of Jackson's prior illnesses related to this previously undisclosed condition?  (Remember the hyperbaric chamber photo described by Jackson biographer J. Randy Taborelli as a Jackson publicity hoax gone awry?)  Or does he suffer from a celebrity version of Munchausen's Syndrome, where the afflicted distort and leak illnesses for attention?

In the sad, strange public life of Michael Jackson, it's hard to be sure.