Michael Jackson sick, needs lung transplant

[Villavic]

MELVILLE, N.Y. — Michael Jackson is ailing from a rare lung condition and needs to undergo a transplant, according to the author of a new biography on the King of Pop.

Author Ian Halperin said Jackson, 50, suffers from Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, a condition that can be fatal.

"He’s had it for years, but it’s gotten worse," Halperin said in an interview with In Touch magazine. "He needs a lung transplant but may be too weak to go through with it. He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping. It’s the bleeding that is the most problematic part. It could kill him."

Halperin also said Jackson "can barely speak" and is having trouble seeing: "The vision in his left eye is 95 percent gone."

Jackson’s spokesman was unavailable for comment.