Circumcision doubles autism risk, study claims

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Boys circumcised before the age of five are twice as likely to develop autism, according to a controversial Danish study of over 300,000 children

More here plus comments> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/m ... laims.html

By Telegraph Men 10:29AM GMT 09 Jan 2015

Circumcision carried out before the age of five can double a child's risk of developing autism, according to new research.

The study of over 340,000 boys born in Denmark between 1994 and 2003 concluded that circumcision raised the chance of developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before the age of 10 by 46 per cent. When circumcision was carried out before the age of five, the risk doubled.
The study suggested that there is a link between the pain of the procedure - the surgical removal of the foreskin - and the development of ASD.

Professor Morten Frisch, of the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, whose team carried out the research, said: “Our investigation was prompted by the combination of recent animal findings linking a single painful injury to lifelong deficits in stress response and a study showing a strong, positive correlation between a country’s neonatal male circumcision rate and its prevalence of ASD in boys.
“Given the widespread practice of non-therapeutic circumcision in infancy and childhood around the world, our findings should prompt other researchers to examine the possibility that circumcision trauma in infancy or early childhood might carry an increased risk of serious neurodevelopmental and psychological consequences.”

Prof Frisch's findings, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, have been questioned by others in the medical community, and some religious groups.
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The rest is here> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/m ... laims.html

Utter drivel in my opinion. I don't see how this could cause it. You're born on the spectrum, you don't get on it after a surgical procedure like this.

Perhaps seeing your dong mutilated as a child scares people into autism.

That would mean the percentage of autistic Americans would be far greater than Europeans, which certainly isn't the case. Autism would also be far more prevalent amongst Jews and Muslims as well, which it isn't. Sounds like anti-circumcision propaganda to me.

As pointed out, let us laugh at this study, and the people that seriously push this quackery as actual legitimate science.

You don't "develop" or "get" autism. You're born with it.

Jeez. When are people just going to accept it has evolved into our gene pool?

Agreed on correlation/causation. I expect that in Denmark high circumcision rates are linked to a demographic with a high diagnosis rate. Possibly "men" (I doubt they're actually that stupid but I couldn't resist)

Well, it's not really a dumb study.

If you do enough trials on the population of 300,000+ people (and the study is all done appropriately with matched controls), and you keep on ending up with double the risk, then something is amiss.

A severe mental [and corresponding physical] reaction to bodily trauma does seem like a possible reason for developing a condition that is shown to have multiple causes (eMedicine).

it does seem a bit unlikely. Maybe not impossible, it is generally accepted that it is not purely genetic and that there are environmental factors, and I can kind of see how a painful traumatic could trigger a withdrawal into autism for the predisposed, because symptoms get worse under stress perhaps an early stressful event kick starts the autistic response, if a pre disposed brain develops enough before their first traumatic event perhaps they are protected. I am basing this on nothing, so probably very unlikely.

What put girls on the spectrum, then?

Since this "study" was released to the popular press, and not to a reputable refer-review science journal, it is easily dismissible as utter nonsense.

People have been trying to link Autism with their favorite pet peeves for years. This is just one more lame attempt to do so.