Autism causes: Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism – Donald Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s claim goes viral, draws sharp reactions

US President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put forward another extreme theory about autism on Thursday; this time they linked it to circumcision or the pain medication given for the procedure. The claim was quickly derided by experts, who said the main study cited by proponents of this theory was riddled with errors and that it was yet another example of Kennedy’s penchant for “pseudoscience.”

“Don’t take Tylenol if you’re pregnant and don’t give Tylenol when the baby is born,” Trump said at the Cabinet meeting.

“There are two studies showing that the rate of autism doubles in children who are circumcised early,” Kennedy said, adding: “That’s probably because they were given Tylenol.”
“None of this makes sense,” Boston University professor and autism expert Helen Tager-Flusberg told AFP.

“None of the studies have shown that giving Tylenol to babies is linked to a higher risk of autism when you can control for all confounding variables,” he said.

Pregnant women are also advised by medical associations to take pain medications, including acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, in moderation as needed, contrary to Trump’s “forced” advice. The most rigorous analysis to date, published last year in JAMA and using siblings as controls, found no link. The most cited paper published by Danish researchers in 2015 on the circumcision theory appeared to be “riddled with flaws” that other scientists pointed out at the time, psychiatrist David Mandell of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania told AFP.

Specifically, he said the study was based on a small sample of Muslim boys who were circumcised in hospitals rather than at home, which is the dominant cultural practice.

These children are likely “medically compromised” by hospitalization, which could explain their higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders, Mandell said.

“A more recent review of studies in this area found no association between circumcision and any negative psychological effects,” he added.

Kennedy, a former environmental activist and lawyer who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before being appointed Trump’s health secretary, has made uncovering the root causes of autism a central focus while cutting research funding in other areas.

To investigate alleged links between vaccines and autism, he hired vaccine conspiracy theorist David Geier, who had previously been disciplined for practicing medicine without a license and testing unproven drugs on autistic children; This link has been disproved by dozens of previous studies.