Michael Jackson is suffering from a rare lung condition and needs to undergo an emergency transplant operation, according to a new report from bestselling biographer Ian Halperin, the force behind Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain and Stalking Britney: Under Siege With Britney Spears.

According to Ian, The King of Pop, 50, has been diagnosed with Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, an occasionally fatal genetic condition.

“He’s had it for years but it’s gotten worse,” Ian told In Touch. “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.”

“The vision in his left eye is 95 percent gone.”