16 year old Jett Travolta, the son of actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston, was found dead in a hotel in the Bahamas where the family was vacationing. It is believed he died from a seizure. It is not clear right now if he was taking medication for his seizures which he has had since he was two ... but given the parents' well known association with the Church of Scientology, one has to wonder.
Of course, I offer my condolences to Mr. Travolta and Ms Preston as well as their daughter, Ella. Losing a son and brother must be almost unbearable.
I also write this to point out that if I had a child and he or she was getting seizures -- in fact even had just one -- I wouldn't rely on a regimen of vitamins or food prescribed by a think-tank. I also would not blame seizures on chemicals in cleaning products unless there was peer-reviewed scientific proof and not just anecdotal evidence. I would go to one or more doctors to get the help he or she needed, in hope of curing or at least minimizing the seizures.
As a Christian I believe in the power of prayer, and the effect that the mental can have on the physical. I also support the exhortation of Jesus that those of us who are sick need a physician, literally (Matthew 9:12). Thus, if I'm ill I seek medical help but also ask God to give my doctors and nurses the guidance to find what's wrong with me so I can get the best treatment. When my father was in a coma a couple of years ago, I didn't call someone who said, inject him with some herbs and let's see if he wakes up. I called 911 and prayed that my father would wake up. Fortunately, he did -- even if it took eleven days in the ICU before he did.
I know that medicine without faith and vice versa is impossible -- and that one can't buy one's way out of an illness (i.e. by tithing to a false televangelist). While natural supplements may offer an alternative they need to be subjected to the same scrutiny as drugs. We know many things that are all natural but have very harmful effects.
Don't forget, one of Jesus' possé was Luke who was a doctor -- the rest of the travelling company with the Man from Galilee, both men and women, couldn't obviously ask their master to heal every single nick or scrape. They let their in-house medic handle those and delegated only the heavy-duty stuff to the boss.
This tragedy will no doubt raise even more scrutiny on a certain castle in Los Angeles. But if physicians are willing to put themselves and their treatments to review then so should the Church of Scientology and its members; if it has nothing to hide then now's as good as time as any to show that.
In no way do I blame Scientology for what happened to Mr. Travolta; obviously the earlier regimen the parents relied on must have done something beneficial -- however, if Kawasaki disease is supposed to subside by eight or nine and Jett was still having seizures into his teens, then the parents need to be asked if they had taken all prudent steps to ensure that this was a tragic accident and nothing more.
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