Is Government to blame for skin disorder?

Medicine, Science & Technology Forum

Several experts of vitiligo state that the skin condition is caused by three factors:
1.) An auto-immune attack by the body's own immune system on skin melanocytes.

2.) Hereditary Genes

3.) toxic chemicals released in the environment that destroy skin melanocytes.

Most vitiligo sufferers believe the third claim. Vitiligo sufferer, Michael Chain states that he got vitiligo when he was ten years old. "I was born in Chicago near where factories were constantly billowing this filithy gas nearly twice as much as in other areas. My brothers and I walked to school coughing and wheezing because the air was so horrible." Asked if this were the cause of his vitiligo, he states, "Absolutely, I first noticed it on my fingers and then it gradually grew."
Other states that they had relatives with vitiligo and were not surprised when they discovered that they had it. "My father said my Grandfather had it, but no one ever really knew the truth. He locked himself into a room and never came out because the patches on his skin were abnormal."

http://www.sld.cu/instituciones/placenta/manos_vitiligo.jpg
A woman with mild vitiligo

http://www.bestlasers.com/es/Vitiligo04.jpg
Once again mild vitiligo

http://www.bu.edu/cme/modules/2002/dermatoses02/thumbs/vitiligo_thumb.jpg
Severe vitiligo

http://cgi.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/images/skin_hands.jpg

This is a pigmentation problem that, like you stated above, can be hereditary.

I'm all for reducing pollution, but I'm not for blaming government for things that simply is not within its control. Pollution is not the cause of everything that goes wrong in life, although it would be nice if it were that simple.

I think that pollution control DOES fall within the governments' lengthy list of responsibilities. Kyoto Accord is one attempt, and so was government-mandated chimney stack scrubbers that are meant to reduce pollution. I think that there should be a swifter move towards environmental protection by the governments, but I'm glad that things ARE moving in that direction.

I don't know if vitiligo can be caused by polluted air, though... That might be stretching it, unless it can be conceded that vitiligo is a non-terminal form of cancer or something, which I believe CAN and HAS been caused by varying types of pollution...

I agree in most cases, Sierradaddy, but vitiligo is a depigmentation condition of the skin that has never been proven to be pollution related. Anyone who says it is, is only taking an extreme guess.

Of course, I'm only guessing too, but I think in future years with more time and research into pigment related concerns, scientists will either discover chimerism, which is two separate sets of DNA in one body, or other genetic factors. Chimerism is very difficult to diagnose, which would lead most people to believe that it is also very rare. As you can imagine, one set of DNA in an individual's body is the determining factor of what an individual will look like. With two sets of DNA in one individual, skin pigmentation/depigmentation is usually as noticeable as the pictures Hazel Dragoneye posted. Scientists are usually not inclined to test for chimerism unless they accidentally test a mother's blood and discover that she "is not the mother of her own children." In cases like that, after agonizing testing between certain members of one family, they then test internal tissue of the body to locate, if possible, a second set of DNA. This phenomenon is rising and has been discovered to not be so rare.

One thing that people who want to jump on the pollution-causes-all-human-defects bandwagon should ask, before pointing fingers, is that if pollution causes a few rare cases of vitiligo, what happened to the rest of the population who were/are "exposed" to vitiligo causing toxins, too?