Jett Travolta, Seizures, Autism

There's been a lot of frenzy in the blogsphere over Jett Travolta (son of John Travolta)'s death. Was he not attended? Is John Travolta gay? Are they covering up his possible autism? What does Scientology have to do with this?

Besides the fact that anti-seizure medicines are quite toxic (to pancreas and kidney, it burns through most plastic), it's worth noting that "seizure disorder" has become a commonplace term...while we gratefully receive the imperfect alms of drugs and fail to contemplate what the suffering of these kids might be telling us.

Dan Olmsted is an ex-UPI reporter who started looking into autism and other neurological disorders and how the exploding rates of these disorders might have something to do with environmental toxins. Even after he was no longer employed with UPI, he kept on, like any good reporter, seeing where this story is taking him. The first few cases of the strange, heretofore unheard of disorder coincided with the widespread use of mercury as a fungicide. Olmsted is methodically going back to the earliest cases...only to find the simple answer may have been sitting in front of our faces (and still is) the whole time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olmsted on Autism: The Unnatural History of Seizures

By Dan Olmsted

The death of Jett Travolta has focused new attention on an old truth -- the benign-sounding "developmental delay," the catchall term for children who are slow to meet their milestones, can be deadly. My hunch is that this is especially true when the "delay" is environmentally induced, as is the case, I believe, with autism. That's why it doesn't matter exactly what diagnosis was assigned to Jett's disorder; its onset followed a febrile illness that seems to have caused brain damage; his parents believe it was connected to toxic exposure. And parents know their children.
...
For now, I just want to make a simple point: Environmentally induced developmental disorders kill kids. We've known it from day one. And just exactly what are we doing to stop it?

read more here.