Jet Travolta, Scientology
Offline Did John Travolta's son Jet die as a result of his rejection of certain medications based on his belief of Scientology's healing power?
If Jet had been on anti-seizure medication, this might not have happened.
There are a lot of complaints, even by medical experts that doctors over prescribe or prescribe medication to people who shouldn't have it. That may be true.
But what many people don't understand is that is not the medication or the scientific method itself that is at fault, but the application by the doctor.
Having said that. Travolta, like many, may not understand that while many medications have side effects long term, it's prescription is a cost/benefit assessment. In other words while the medication may cause other problems, it may have prevented his sudden death by preventing the seizure.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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I heard on the radio that the medication didn't work.
One does wonder how Scientology felt about Travolta's son as children with problems are downstats and not really useful to the religion.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
From a christian perspective, if Travolta's kid died without accepting Jesus into his heart as his lord & savior, he will discover god's meaning & purpose for his life through eternal punishment in hell.
He had been on the medication for years, however it had lost it's effect on him (I am going to assume that the body simply got used to the drug and was no longer effective) and as such it was damaging the liver, the family then decided with approval from his doctor to stop taking the medication since it simply wasn't working. At least that's what is being reported from the travolta camp, personally I don't think scientology has a problem with this as it's not a psycological drug, but one to control a very serious medical condition.
Then I owe his family and apology. But the way the initial media reports made it sound, left me the impression that he rejected the medicine outright.
My apologies to the family. In any case, we can all as humans empathize with the death of a loved one, be they a friend, parent and especially a child.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Ok. I forget that Scientology treats their celebrity members differently from the others. Thanks for the info.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
such a hateful comment which shows how hypocrytical you are in calling yourself a christian. Jesus would never make a comment like that.
Now that all the moaning, groaning, and whining is out of the way... can we PLEASE make fun of his name? Jet Travolta? are you kidding me? >.<
Why do celebrity children have the most retarded names?
Apple
Rainbow Pheonix
Jarr ' el
What Would Kharn Do?
The person to whom you are directing your comment is an atheist. (It's kind of obvious given the name).
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Any idea what the kid was suffering from that would require anti-seizure medication? Latincanuck mentioned that he had been on it for years and that 1) he had developed a tolerance toward it, and 2) it was resulting in liver toxicity, but those two are usually mutually exclusive. If the drug was becoming ineffective due to tolerance, his body was excreting it rather than accumulating it. If it was damaging his liver, his body was accumulating it rather than excreting it. Its either/or, not all of the above.
Also, it is standard operating procedure to moniter the liver with panel screens, and to moniter the amount of medication in the body ( Phenobarb level, Dilantin/Phenytoin level, Depakote/Valproic acid level, etc ) to help the physician engage in a juggling act of dosage in order to maintain the best effect with the least amount of damage. Normally if there is a problem with one anticonvulsant, they taper the dose to wean you off ( cold turkey can trigger seizures ) and switch to another anticonvulsant. If the doctor tries one medication, finds it ineffective, and throws his hands in the air, saying in a resigned voice " Oh well, we tried! " you find another doctor and file a malpractice suit against the first one.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
I'm glad you apologized, I had three messages from John Travolta this week asking me why I allowed you to post such a view on this site. :P Someone called into Stern this week saying they know Jet Travolta and knew enough about autism to say he was autistic, something that apparently John and Kelly refuse to believe. I didn't research it any further, but if you're looking for the negative impact of scientology, that might be a start.
You're telling a chap who doesn't have a clue what the bible says will happen to non-believers to be more observant of a screen name? Jet Travolta is burning in hell and the Christian calls us hateful?
To the onlooker: Notice that when a Christian is clueless he slips up and relays Gods action of burning all non Christians for an eternity as "hypocrytical" and hateful. A Christian finally gets it!
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After digging around a bit, all I was able to find was that the kid had Kawasaki disease. A lot of people on various forums have been pointing out that Depakote is not used for treatment of this disease, which is true. But what they seem to be neglecting to see is that the disease manifests initially as a high fever. Fevers can trigger seizures, and in infants a prolonged high fever will sometimes cause brain damage. Damage to the hypothalamus can result in seizure disorder. What happens here is that the child will suddenly spike a fever and experience a seizure. I've watched toddlers go from afebrile to 105f in a matter of minutes from this. Other children will experience seizures without fever. One of the long term treatments for this is Depakote. So that might be the reason he was on the drug. There is still the problem of taking the child off of all anticonvulsants, though. To this I should add that many children spontaneously outgrow their seizure disorders. It is not impossible that Jett did this. If so, a physician may have decided that Depakote therapy was no longer needed, and tapered him off of it.
The autism approach to Depakote is possible as well, as seizures do seem to often go hand in hand with autism. But once again we have to wonder why all medicinal controls were stopped. There are several medications available to control seizures. Depakote is by no means the last and only resort. I have also found no substantial evidence that the child was autistic. Rumors and speculations abound, and I do find it strange that the Travolta family would claim he was taking Depakote for treatment of Kawasaki disease, but the Travolta's are actors, not doctors. A layperson with little medical knowledge could easily conclude that the seizures were a result of the disease rather than the result of a secondary condition that was possibly triggered by the initial disease.
A third consideration is that the child suffered a recurrence of Kawasaki disease, spiked the tell-tale fever, and died from a related febrile seizure.
Having no case history and very little information to work with, I can't see any direct evidence of negligence. It seems likely that the death was not related to Scientology dogma. If the child were an untreated autistic that suffered from untreated seizures, it would be possible to conclude that negligence played a part in his death. As autism is not recognised by Scientologists, this is a possibility. But with no chance of an autopsy, it would take a court ordered release of medical records to shed any more light on the matter other than what the Travolta family wishes to disclose. Were I the grieving parent, I doubt that I would be willing to disclose much about it regardless of the actual cause of death.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.