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January 11, 2015

Circumcision in boys leads to higher chance of developing attention spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism by age 10, according to a new controversial study in  Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 

The Statens Serum Institut study observed that in a cohort of all children born in Denmark between 1994 and 2003, the risk of ASD doubled when a boy was circumcised before the age of five. The link, they postulate, is in the stress caused by the pain of being snipped.  This means that the child's perception of pain may become skewed for life, a significant characteristic found among children with autism.

The researchers found that regardless of cultural background circumcised boys run a higher risk of developing ASD. Also noted was an increased risk of hyperactivity disorder among circumcised boys in non-Muslim families. 

Lead author professor Morten Frisch of the Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, 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.”

There is a long list of highly contested studies attempting to link autism to various unrelated practices such as vaccination, all of which have proved to be fraudulent.

As expected, Frisch’s findings have caused much debate.  

Professor David Katz of University College London, chairman of Milah UK, an organization dedicated to the discussion of circumcision issues on behalf of the Jewish community, said “the report is far from convincing: correlation does not equal causation.”

Professor Jeremy Turk, Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist at Southwark Child & Adolescent Mental Health Neurodevelopmental Service, believes these findings “need to be considered carefully – one cannot draw very strong conclusions from the data.” The weakness of the study is on correlations between data sets. “For example, many cases of autism are missed until children are older and as there are relatively few cases of autism this could easily skew the data.”  Turk also says the science of childhood physical trauma approach is “highly speculative.”

In December, the Centers for Disease Control spoke in favor of circumcision, stating the benefits outweigh the risks. “These recommendations are based on an evaluation of available information on the health risks and benefits associated with high-quality, medically performed male circumcision and were developed to pertain to men and male newborns in the United States,” the CDC report reads in part. “In these recommendations, the preventive benefits of male circumcision are generally expressed as relative-risk reductions (e.g., a 50% reduction from a 2% risk of an STI to a 1% risk), whereas any associated harm is expressed as an absolute risk (e.g., a 2-4% risk of adverse events).”

As the circumcision debate rages, Israel has called the EU racist for attacking the practice medically.  Meanwhile, Norway may ban non-medical circumcision altogether.

For most Jews, physicians included, the topic of circumcision is not medically relevant.   Both potential medical risks and potential medical benefits are small and irrelevant to the practice of medicine.  

Circumcision is a predominantly religious issue.

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