On Saturday, the Daily Mail speculated at length that Travolta was on the verge of bolting the cult, citing his despodency over the death of his son Jett, whose autism reportedly went untreated on account of how Scientology doesn't believe in autism. The first glimpse of daylight between Travolta, who has reportedly funded the church to the tune of millions, and Scientology came last month when details of a Bahamian police report emerged in which Travolta acknowledged that Jett "suffered from a seizure disorder and was autistic."

But yesterday Travolta's rep told E!Online that the Daily Mail report was "totally false":

"There's no change in the relationship between the Church of Scientology and John," Paul Bloch told E! News. "He is a member and it's as it was, now and forever."

And in Scientology, forever means, like, forever.

But, as another E!Online story notes, Scientology has a way of holding sway over some celebrity adherents even after they've decided they don't want to play anymore: The cult's "auditing" process involves extracting confessions of all manner of "deviant" behavior, from financial misdeeds to sexual histories, and storing the data in the church's archives. If a wavering member, say, didn't want anybody to know that he's had sex with men, the church would have a fairly good chance of convincing him not to, in Scientology parlance, "blow."

The report was obtained by the National Enquirer. Travolta's use of the term "autistic" seems to be a break from church doctrine, which teaches that pyschiatric diagnoses are fake ailments invented by Nazi psychiatrists so they can give people drugs to keep them from realizing their true potential of controlling the physical world with their minds.

Prior to Jett's death, his mother Kelly Preston attributed his problems to a rare disorder called Kawasaki disease and to "environmental toxins" from carpet-cleaners. She claimed that a Scientological detoxification regime had helped to ease his symptoms.

After Jett's death, Scientology representatives denied that the church has taken a stance on autism, saying, "It's medicine. The church deals with the spirit. If people have a medical problem or a physical ailment, they go to a doctor. It's church policy that they do so and they get that addressed." But autism is a psychiatric disorder described in DSM-IV, psychiatry's diagnostic bible. While a case could be made that Travolta was only using the term generally, to describe a disorder with physical roots that he thought could be explained, Scientology-style, by toxins, it's certainly unusual for a high-profile representative of the church to use the word.

For the last fucking time, celebrities, vaccines do not cause autism.

It is fine and noble to say "we should look into what (beyond better, earlier detection and diagnoses) is causing all this autism!" and even "we should make sure we are testing these vaccines extensively!" but to just go around shouting, without evidence, and in spite of evidence to the contrary, "VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM" is 9/11 Truther hysterical idiocy at its dumbest.

But hey, all you non-doctors with absolutely no understanding of the scientific method or medical research can just go ahead and keep using your massive platforms to convince parents not to vaccinate their kids, because what is the worst that could happen?

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

Good work, Arianna, letting this famous person promote his little pet cause on your website, thus is the vast potential of the citizen-driven new media landscape realized.

It's a timely obsession. Just as polio captured the Cold War's feeling of paralysis, AIDS hysteria spoke to the sexual hangover from the '70s, and Prozac Nation answered the unease we felt about the '90s boom, autism is the disease of the moment for a time when computers are making us all feel less than human.

The death of Jett Travolta, whom some speculate had the brain-development disorder, has put autism in the headlines once more — though the papers hardly needed prompting. Michael Wolff, the shiny-pated media contrarian, identified the obsession with autism, but not its cause, in a recent blog post.

In its worst forms, autism is a horrible disease, incredibly painful for parents to deal with. It typically appears in a child by the age of three, interfering with the ability to communicate, blinding the victim to verbal and nonverbal conversational clues most of us take for granted.

Rain Man, the 1987 Dustin Hoffman movie, was for many the pop-culture introduction to autism, as well as the notion that it is often accompanied by unusual skills. But the mass-media fixation on it has grown as scientists have learned that autism exists on a spectrum. A milder form known as Asperger's syndrome — a combination of high intelligence and social ineptness — is thought to be practically epidemic in Silicon Valley; in 2001, Wired dubbed it the "geek syndrome." And since then, Time has put the disease on its cover twice.

The sliding scale of autism may be precisely what makes it so gripping now. The worry now: Are we all perhaps a bit autistic? Is the Internet turning us into robots, unable to express our emotions without mechanical help? Instant messaging famously suppresses social cues. Needing to type ":-)" to communicate our pleasure may give the tiniest hint of what the disease may be like.

There are a host of conspiracy theories about the rise in autism diagnoses, including the completely debunked notion it has something to do with vaccines. The consensus seems to be that we're seeing more autism cases because we're more primed to look for its symptoms. In other words, we see autism everywhere because we want to. And we look for it in our kids because we're obsessed with whether we have it ourselves.

Kawasaki or autism?

At a news conference late Monday, a Bahaman funeral home director and assistant director said they listed "seizure" as the cause of death on Jett Travolta's death certificate. Contrary to police reports that Jett hit his head, there was no sign of head trauma, and the body was in "great condition," the men said.

If Jett did, in fact, die from a seizure, it's worth noting that Kawasaki disease is "rarely fatal." Medical examiner Dr. Werner Spitz told E! "Death from Kawasaki is at best unusual." CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Larry King Live: "It's very rare in fact for someone to be in their teens and still have symptoms of Kawasaki."

All of which would suggest that Jett's seizures arose from another disorder. Like, say, his rumored autism. Which, per his Scientologist parents, was a mental disorder (possibly requiring a dreaded psychiatrist) he officially did not have.

Seizures or bleeding?

But what if Jett didn't die from a seizure at all? Doctors had expected a seizure diagnosis would take weeks, not hours or days.  

Dr. Cyril Wecht, whose claim to punditry is having autopsied Anna Nicole Smith's son in 2007, told Fox News weeks of tests would be needed to conclude a seizure killed someone:

If it’s a convulsive seizure disorder, they won’t find anything. There is nothing of significance to find, anatomically speaking. The only way you can make that diagnosis is if you rule out everything else, including drugs in a toxicology report. If that is the case, that could take a couple of weeks.

Spitz told E!: "When seizures are the cause... the absolute cause would take at least two weeks so everything can be tested."

If not by seizure, then how did Jett die?

Contrary to the funeral directors' statements, initial police reports suggested physical trauma. And early Tuesday, TMZ quoted anonymous "people in the bathroom" with Jett backing up that account and refuting the funeral directors' revised history:

Jett had suffered a seizure and struck either the toilet or the wall as he collapsed. He was "bleeding in several areas," including his mouth. He had no cuts but did have bruises on his body. Jett had also been bleeding internally.

If Jett had been bleeding for an extended period of time, that would sharpen the questions about whether Travolta's nannies, including his rumored gay lover, were qualified caregivers.

Despite what is written on the death certificate, the final word will come weeks from now, from the official autopsy report, inclusive of related tests. Barring objections by the police, only Travolta and his wife will have access to the report, leaving Jett's death as much of a mystery as they wish to keep it.

(Top pic from Getty; second pic from Entertainment Tonight.)

From a video celebrity photo agency X17 took of the family's trip to a Paris restaurant in November, it looks like Jeff's wife Ana Kathrein, his partner in a wedding-photography business, is the other nanny, since the help is said to travel constantly with the family and no other adults are visible with the Travoltas.

According to a record of Scientology courses taken, Ana Kathrein is a Grade III Scientologist, which puts her three grades away from being "clear," a vaunted status Travolta has apparently attained.

So why did Travolta and Preston pick these two — aside from their common religion, which teaches wacky beliefs about mental illness — to care for their children? Jett Travolta reportedly suffered from a host of medical problems, which his parents claim stem from exposure to carpet-cleaning chemicals, a claim medical experts find unlikely. Some speculate he had autism, a condition for which parents often hire expert caregivers. Instead, Jett got two Scientologist wedding photographers.

A TMZ.com story on the death of John Travolta's 16-year-old son, Jett, mentioned that he was found by family nanny Jeff Kathrein — but it didn't run a famous picture of Travolta kissing Kathrein.

In 2006, Kathrein and Travolta were caught by paparazzi locking lips. The Travolta camp's official explanation: Why, John kisses everyone like that! But in the wake of a teenager's death, no one stopped to ask who the man who found him dead is, and what his relationship was to the kid's father.

Kathrein is one of the Travolta family's two nannies. On his website, he describes himself as a photographer; he mostly lenses weddings. His qualifications for childcare are unclear, other than being a Scientologist like Jett's parents, John Travolta and Kelly Preston. Kathrein's wife, Ana, is also a Scientologist. (Some Scientology critics believe the church forces gays and lesbians to stay in the closet and pursue heterosexual relationships, frequently citing Travolta and Preston's marriage.)

Why the deference from TMZ, which is usually the standards-bearer of standards-lowering? Much remains mysterious about Jett Travolta's tragic death — and impolite questions ought to be asked. Isn't that what celebrity tabloids are good for?

Take the family's unchallenged assertion that he suffered from Kawasaki disease, an immunological syndrome which causes painful inflammation, after exposure to carpet-cleaning chemicals, and that he died after hitting his head after suffering a related seizure. At least one doctor disputes the notion, saying that there's no link between chemical exposure and Kawasaki disease and that it does not cause seizures.

Jett may have suffered instead from autism which went untreated, because of Travolta's adherence to the cultlike religion of Scientology and the bizarre beliefs about mental illness that go with it. And if Travolta hired Kathrein for reasons other than the best interests of his child? That only makes it worse.

The TMZ story, with a grainy photo of Travolta and Kathrein buried in the lower right-hand corner:

And the 2006 National Enquirer story which ran both an innocent-seeming photo of Travolta and Kathrein talking, and the two locking lips:

It's caused by whiny parents trying to get attention and drugs for their hyperactive, non-autistic kids. Now that he's cleared that up and picked a fight with Page Six to boot, controversy should be safely behind him. Click the video above to watch.

"Before the vaccination, he was huggy, lovey, snuggly," she says in the newest issue of Us Weekly. "Then it was like someone came down and stole him."

McCarthy, 36, remembers when Evan began to come out of his shell while watching a SpongeBob episode. "I heard Evan laugh...I jumped on the bed and started screaming."

She adds, "When he finally hugged me, I prayed, 'Please God don't let this be the only time.'"

 [...]

"I made a deal with God," she explains. "I said, 'You fix my boy, you show me the way and I'll teach the world how I did it.'"



As you can see from the accompanying photographs, Evan appears to be a perfectly happy, healthy, mom-groping little boy. We can only hope the Travoltas—who too are rumored to have a child with the disorder—are soon made aware of McCarthy's holistic approach, and that a gluten-free lifestyle will have their little one honking Kelly Preston's jubblies in no time.

• Jenny McCarthy: My Son No Longer Has Autism [Us]

They throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.

Why do comedians insist on putting this sort of slapdash material in books? Maybe it kills in front of a bunch of drunks in Vegas at 2 in the morning, but it's painful to page through it on, say, the subway. Plus there's a written record of the offensiveness/idiocy!

The one thing I love about you - is that you care about more things than just the stuff some people THINK you care about (ahem - hair, guys, etc). That's why I need to make sure you're informed about a disorder called Autism. (The first time I officially heard of Autism was in the movie, "Rain Man" with Tom Cruise).

As you know, I am from Iran. What you may not know is that I have an older sister, Ellie, who is developmentally disabled. Now that I've come in contact first hand with Autism, I have a feeling this is what she has although she's never been diagnosed - Iran does not have the same level of health care as here in the US.

We Need To Pay Attention To This [Atoosa's Space]