Mexican-American Parents Are Shocked After Giving Birth To A Blond Baby Girl With Light Skin

I saw a British documentary on it a while ago. The families would often sell limbs of their children because 1)poverty - at another level, 2) superstition as Night Owl said. Heart breaking

Yes, there are a lot of superstitions in Africa that lead to horrific murders of people with albinism, among other rare groups of people. In Zimbabwe I lived in a flat for a time next door to young women twins with albinism. Nobody would speak to them. Everywhere they went, people stared and whispered. They were really shy. It took ages before they would even respond to my greetings. It made me so sad. I was glad at least they had each other.

Yes there are orphanages and centres in Africa just for Albino children because they are often killed or have their limbs amputated for witch doctor practices - it's so awful!

May he is just not a native english speaker. In my native language we also say "Blacks" but it is not offensive like in english. Don't forget, people from all over the world post here.

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Chris Jones, this is a common misunderstanding and the misinformation is pretty prevalent even across the internet. Medically speaking, albanism can refer to any of several rare genetic conditions that affect skin pigmentation in part or all of the body whereas albino is a complete lack of pigmentation throughout the body. One major giveaway is the eyes. Albinos will have pink or violet eyes due to the lack of pigment in the iris. Those suffering albinism may have normally colored eyes that are pale, usually light blue eyes. Ocular albinism is albinism that affects the eyes, but can also affect the skin and hair. There are several varieties of ocular albinism depending on the source and they are referred to as OCA1 , OCA2, OCA3, and OCA4. Other albinism conditions include Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, Chediak-Higashi syndrome, and Griscelli syndrome. Each of these is caused by a different genetic abnormality in any of several genes that control pigmentation.

Huh... I thought that it was an umbrella term for the various forms. A quick search (so scientifically robust to the highest extent 😉) and wikipedia said 'Albinism is a congenital disorder characterized in humans by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. ... While an organism with complete absence of melanin is called an albino, an organism with only a diminished amount of melanin is described as leucistic or albinoid'. Would you mind explaining how they differ? It's 3.54 am and my search skills seem to be below par!! Ta.

No not at all. Defects resulting in albinism have no relation to defects that have effects on face shape. Comparing albinism (which is a minor default with a very visible outcome) to Down syndrom (major defect, having an actual extra chromosome causing a wide range of effects on the whole body inside and out) is apples to orange trees. And even people with Down syndrome vary widely in face shape. They are just as different from each other as any other human, they just share certain characteristics (like a large tongue, almond eyes) that are easy to spot. But all humans have more features that we share than differ from each other. Maybe the boy Jon S saw was about the same age, kindergartners still have bigger heads that seem very round. This little girl looks exactly like her sister, besides having very little pigment.

Thanks Rissie. I think the similarity I am seeing is in the brow line more than anything, which might be due to squinting in bright light.