Experts are slamming Robert F Kennedy Jr‘s ‘incoherent’ comments seemingly linking circumcision to an increased risk in autism.
About 80 percent of men in America are circumcised, with the practice carried out for religious or hygienic purposes or for personal preference. It is considered a safe procedure in the US.
But the health secretary said during a cabinet meeting Thursday that two studies show an increased incidence of autism in boys who had undergone a circumcision as infants.
He said: ‘There’s two studies which show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it’s highly likely because they were given Tylenol.’
RFK Jr later clarified in a post on X that he wasn’t linking circumcision and autism, but linking the use of acetaminophen for pain control after the procedure to autism.
Health officials in the Trump administration, and the president himself, last month linked the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy with autism, despite a majority in the medical field, as well as scientific research, determining there is no causal relationship.
Now, the Daily Mail has spoken to three experts, who all said linking circumcision to autism amounted to ‘incoherent speculation’ that ‘misreads the science’.
One expert acknowledged, however, that there may be merit to the warning that prescribing very young babies acetaminophen could raise their risk of autism, but said that more studies were needed.
Robert F Kennedy Junior, pictured above in August, said at a press conference yesterday that circumcision may raise the risk of autism if an infant also receives Tylenol, or acetaminophen
Dr Jeff Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in the Department of Health Policy Studies, told Daily Mail: ‘I don’t know what gave Secretary Kennedy that idea.
‘The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in Israel, where ritual circumcision is nearly universal, is about 1 in 88, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health. In the US, where circumcision is far less common, the rate is 1 in 31, according to the CDC.
He added: ‘Kennedy also assumes all these children were given Tylenol after circumcision. He has no data to support that.
‘In most Jewish ritual circumcisions, a few drops of wine are placed on the baby’s lips— not acetaminophen.’
Autism rates in Israel are about one percent, compared to 3.2 percent in the US.
More than 1,000 circumcisions are carried out in the US every day, typically on babies within the first days of life, or under six weeks old.
It is uncommon for babies to receive acetaminophen after the procedure.
Acetaminophen is available over the counter, but medical guidelines say it should not be administered to infants under 12 weeks old unless recommended by a pediatrician.
Autism rates have exploded in the US in recent years, with one in 31 children diagnosed with the condition in 2022 compared to one in 150 in 2000.
At the same time, however, experts have vastly loosened the definition of the condition, leading many to be diagnosed with autism who never previously would have been.
In his post on X on Friday, Kennedy said that his comments were referring to a 2025 study published as a pre-print, research that has not been reviewed by other scientists.
This pre-print is a literature review of 64 studies, published from 2008 to 2025, that contained the terms ‘autism’ and ‘acetaminophen’ or ‘paracetamol’, the brand name for Tylenol in many other countries, including the UK.
It included at least one study on circumcision and autism, a 2015 paper from scientists in Denmark, where circumcision is uncommon, that it said had been ‘irrationally dismissed’.
The Danish research compared autism rates among 340,000 boys who were not circumcised to 3,347 boys who were circumcised, and found that the circumcised individuals had double the risk of autism compared to the other group.
It only detected a correlation, which does not show that circumcision directly caused autism, and it only included a small number of people with autism.
It also did not look at whether these children took acetaminophen after the procedure and only analyzed the relationship between autism and early life pain.
But the 2025 pre-print notes that, ‘this evidence points to acetaminophen, often used in conjunction with male circumcision, as a trigger for autism’.
Trump is pictured above during the cabinet meeting on Thursday
Dr David Shusterman, a urologist in New York City, told this website: ‘Circumcision by itself, just cutting the foreskin, does not create autism.
‘It is nice to see that Kennedy is at least looking at this, but based on studies, I don’t think you can say that Tylenol use in infants is dangerous at this stage.’
He added: ‘We would need large prospective randomized studies on Tylenol. To me, this just doesn’t make a lot of sense unless there is more evidence.’
He recommended a study that compared the number of autism diagnoses in a nationally-representative sample that compared infants who were circumcised and then received acetaminophen to infants who were circumcised but then did not receive the drug.
It is not clear how often babies are administered acetaminophen after a circumcision, but Dr Shusterman, who has carried out many circumcisions, said that in his experience this was rare.
Dr Justin Houman, a urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California, however, said that the drug is routinely offered to babies at his hospital after the procedure to help them manage pain.
He said it was not clear how many parents accepted the recommendation and gave their sons the drug.
But describing the circumcision of his son, Dr Shusterman said: ‘My son’s circumcision was seven days post birth, we didn’t give him any medication. He cried for about 10 seconds, and then stopped crying.’
President Donald Trump and Kennedy first made claims regarding acetaminophen and autism in a press conference last month, during which Trump urged pregnant women not to take the medication because of a potential link.
He said: ‘Don’t take Tylenol. Fight like hell not to take it.’
Some studies have shown an association between taking acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol, during pregnancy and autism in children.
But experts stress that an association does not directly prove that acetaminophen causes autism. They also highlight other large-scale research that has found no link between taking Tylenol during pregnancy and autism.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .