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As if you didn’t know, Jett Travolta, the 16-year-old son of John Travolta and Kelly Preston, passed away Friday morning during a vacation in The Bahamas. Jett suffered a fatal seizure while in the bathroom, and apparently hit his head on the bathtub. He was taken to Rand Memorial Hospital, but he couldn’t be revived.

Period. That’s all we really know.

Because that’s all we really know, it only makes sense that the public has started fervently speculating the tragedy, right? (Yes, that’s sarcasm.) Specifically, the accuracy of Jett’s developmental problems being linked to Kawasaki disease. People are claiming Jett actually had autism (something people’ve been claiming for several years, I believe) and that Travolta’s and Preston’s Scientology beliefs skewed their ability to accept it.

I’m not exactly sure why people think Jett had autism, but I do know that CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta appeared on Larry King Live saying of Kawasaki disease:

“You get pretty sick for a few days. In the worst-case scenario, sometimes it can affect the blood vessels of the heart, called the coronary arteries [...] Sometimes they can develop aneurysms in it. That’s probably the most dangerous thing. But again, this is typically a disease associated with young children. It’s typically in Japan, and it’s pretty rare.”

Dr. Gupta also pointed out that it’s “rare for teens to display symptoms of the disease” and that most Kawasaki patients are “usually between 2 and 5 years old.”

And, Dr. Stanford Shulman (Kawasaki disease specialist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine) was quoted saying:

“Seizures are not part of Kawasaki disease [...] If a teenager had a seizure and died, that would not commonly be due to Kawasaki disease.”

I can imagine how that kind of information – from medical professionals and experts, no less – would help fan the flames.

Well, I’m not an expert in Kawasaki disease. I’m not a doctor, either (even if I were, how could I diagnose autism in a boy I’ve never met?). But I do feel pretty confident in reminding people that John Travolta and Kelly Preston have suffered a terrible and completely unexpected loss. Regardless of how anyone feels about Scientology and its stance on mental and brain health, Travolta and Preston are parents who’ve lost their child.

Let’s please keep that in mind as all these stories continue to surface.

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    Last reviewed: 5 Jan 2009