Kelly Preston talks on TV for the first time today about the death of Jett Travolta — her son with husband John Travolta.
Jett, 16, died in January 2009 from what was ruled a seizure during a family vacation in the Bahamas.
The Travoltas said that, as a child, Jett suffered from Kawasaki syndrome, which causes blood vessels to become inflamed and usually affects children 5 and younger.
“[Jett] was autistic,” Preston says on today’s “The Doctors” (9 a.m./Ch. 2). “He had seizures, and when he was very young, he had Kawasaki syndrome.
“[Jett] was on seizure medications for years, but a lot of times they didn’t work,” she says. “We would try all different things and I felt when we were able to keep certain things at a bare minimum . . . he did so much better. He was coming out of the autism.”
Preston is an advocate for organic foods and for diminishing the use of pesticides.
“I strongly believe as a mother, as does my husband, that there are certain contributing factors that lead to autism,” she says, “and some of it is very much the chemicals in our environment and in our food.”
Executive producer Carla Pennington says Preston chose “The Doctors” because show hosts — Travis Stork, Jim Sears, Andrew Ordon and Lisa Masterson — are physicians.
“She has endured a tragic loss no parent should have to face and is sharing the lessons learned . . . with co-hosts who are practicing physicians that can carefully navigate topics as complicated as autism,” Pennington says.