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Sage00 · Jan 11, 2015

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.

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 countrys 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.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/acti...mcision-doubles-autism-risk-study-claims.html

Prophet Steve · Jan 11, 2015

Oh boy.

Dennis · Jan 11, 2015

Where is your foreskin now, GAF?

Shin Kojima · Jan 11, 2015

"But my girlfriend thinks it looks better!"

bobbytkc · Jan 11, 2015

What is the link? It is just a piece of skin. is circumcision prevalent in denmark anyway?

Childhood trauma?

lazygecko · Jan 11, 2015

I can at least believe this a bit more than the phoney vaccine theory.

Dennis · Jan 11, 2015

bobbytkc said:
What is the link? It is just a piece of skin. is circumcision prevalent in france anyway?

Childhood trauma?

That is what it says in the OP, yes.

Frodo · Jan 11, 2015

What a twist.

*subscribe*

yankeeforever2 · Jan 11, 2015

correlation does not equal causation

PdotMichael · Jan 11, 2015

Well, not the first paper in the last years that came to the same conclusion.

Circumcision of babies and little children without medical reason is inhuman anyway.

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

There is a heck of a lot wrong with a study unless there is much more than the newspaper is letting on.

lazygecko said:
I can at least believe this a bit more than the phoney vaccine theory.

Because you want to?

Plinko · Jan 11, 2015

Professor Jeremy Turk, a psychiatrist at Southwark Child & Adolescent Mental Health Neurodevelopmental Service, said, "I have some issues with the premise in that their speculations regarding early pain as a cause of autism are, to say the least, highly speculative."

From the article.

bobbytkc · Jan 11, 2015

lazygecko said:
I can at least believe this a bit more than the phoney vaccine theory.

i don't think the vaccine theory had any data to support it... did it?

HK-47 · Jan 11, 2015

lazygecko said:
I can at least believe this a bit more than the phoney vaccine theory.

I'd like to hear why.

samn · Jan 11, 2015

Plinko said:
From the article.

Their clearly labelled speculations are speculative, well obviously.

Whether we know why or why not, the finding still stands.

lazygecko · Jan 11, 2015

One explanation for autism is that it's the brain's way of coping with overwhelming sensory stimulation from sight, hearing, touch, etc. I wouldn't be all that surprised over the possibility that circumcision might trigger some process which could lead to that.

Raptor2155 · Jan 11, 2015

Lol really? I don't know how the researchers came up with this conclusion.

DECK'ARD · Jan 11, 2015

Unnecessary surgical procedures should be avoided.

Don't traumatise newborns.

Seems a better perspective to work from rather than the other way round of assuming there is no damaging effect.

PdotMichael · Jan 11, 2015

Plinko said:
From the article.

The goal of the paper was to show a connection between autism and circumcisions, not what kind of connection - that's the job of further papers.

SliceSabre · Jan 11, 2015

This sounds like just another offshoot of the vaccines cause autism bullshit out there.

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

The childhood trauma thesis doesn't even make sense.

What makes this procedure unique? Wouldn't general sickness be a trauma, among a thousand other things. And the whole notion of a stress response triggering autism seems suspect. There's a million things about being a baby that are stressful. Everything is new and unique something done in the first days of life triggering austism doesn't seem to me to be very likely.

And wouldn't this mean austism rates would be noticeably higher in places like the US, Israel, the Middle East, etc than other places with Europe having a lower rate? Any evidence of that?

kswiston · Jan 11, 2015

Aren't autism rates going up while circumcision rates are going down?

kneePat · Jan 11, 2015

lol is it cause when a guy gets his dick cut he loses part of his thought process?

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

PdotMichael said:
The goal of the paper was to show a connection between autism and circumcisions, not what kind of connection - that's the job of further papers.

You can show pointless connections to pretty much anything. Baseless correlation is pretty silly. Is there any other work being done on this "trauma thesis"?

kswiston said:
Aren't autism rates going up while circumcision rates are going down?

And doesn't Europe have one of the highest austism rates and lowest circumcision rates?

Jackbooted · Jan 11, 2015

Is a circumcision any more traumatic than the actual act of childbirth for a baby? I would think on the spectrum of "traumatic" events for a new born being squeezed out of the mother's womb through an incredibly tight hole in to a world of sight, sound, smell and touch would rate a bit higher than having the foreskin cut. Could just be my interpretation of events though.

Dictator93 · Jan 11, 2015

Penis Mutilation affects a child's psyche?

Who would have thought it.

astroturfing · Jan 11, 2015

i've always wondered why some people dismiss the possibility of mental trauma on children who've experienced the cutting of their foreskin. the best defense people seem to have is "well they won't remember it anyway, they're just babies", showing how they don't understand even the basics of how the human brain and subconscious processes work.

for me it's clear as day (i might be wrong of course but i doubt it); if you perform any painful and/or violent act on a child whose brain is in a critical development phase, it's going to have some effect. autism spectrum disorders would be a surprising result though, never would have guessed.

Derwind · Jan 11, 2015

Circumcision is such a vain procedure, adverse health related reasons aside, its an entirely arbitrary and selfish procedure.

SliceSabre · Jan 11, 2015

Also interesting is that it says before age 5.

Does if something happens to the boy and he must get snipped for medical reasons then he's going to possible get autism from that? Yea not buying it. You can make a study say anything you want anyway.

ComputerMKII · Jan 11, 2015

I wonder what the world would look like now if Jesus was an autist.

SamVimes · Jan 11, 2015

yankeeforever2 said:
correlation does not equal causation

46% over 300,000 cases is at least worth looking into.

SliceSabre said:
Also interesting is that it says before age 5.

Does if something happens to the boy and he must get snipped for medical reasons then he's going to possible get autism from that? Yea not buying it. You can make a study say anything you want anyway.

Before the age of 10. Before the age of 5 it seems much worse.

theJohann · Jan 11, 2015

yankeeforever2 said:
correlation does not equal causation

This is really quite a general question, but how do most scientists ascertain causation? It sounds like quite a philosophical question, but I'm sure they have some methodology for determining if a relationship is causal or merely correlative. I have not looked into this yet, unfortunately, but a brief skim through Wikipedia suggests that there are different approaches depending on the field of study.

I suppose that removing as many confounding factors as possible is one method. I've also heard of the use of directed acyclic graphs in relation to causality, but I'm not really sure how they are applied.

PdotMichael · Jan 11, 2015

APKmetsfan said:
You can show pointless connections to pretty much anything. Baseless correlation is pretty silly. Is there any other work being done on this "trauma thesis"?

The data don't look like they are showing a baseless correlation though, especially the study isn't the first one that showed a correlation between circumcisions and autism.

Desi · Jan 11, 2015

Sage00 said:
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[/b] before the age of five, the risk doubled.[/b]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/acti...mcision-doubles-autism-risk-study-claims.html

doubled? Did I shave by with 8% left?

SolarPowered · Jan 11, 2015

Those are scary results. I'm not a big fan of circumcision, but I hope it's not true because a lot of boys have been and will continue to be cut.

666 · Jan 11, 2015

What a load of shit

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

TheJohann said:
This is really quite a general question, but how do most scientists ascertain causation? It sounds like quite a philosophical question, but I'm sure they have some methodology for determining if a relationship is causal or merely correlative. I have not looked into this yet, unfortunately, but a brief skim through Wikipedia suggests that there are different approaches depending on the field of study.

I suppose that removing as many confounding factors as possible is one method. I've also heard of the use of directed acyclic graphs in relation to causality, but I'm not really sure how they are applied.

Twin studies, deeper population comparisons,deeper look at the underlying thesis that physical trauma causes autism.

Bellamin · Jan 11, 2015

The people behind the study wanted to find a relation between circumcision and autism. Surprise, they found one! Until more studies are released, I'm gonna let the Jenny McCarthys of the world believe it.

Joe Shlabotnik · Jan 11, 2015

SamVimes said:
46% over 300,000 cases is at least worth looking into.

It's not 46% of 300,000 cases, it's a 46% increase in the chance of developing autism according to the study.

So if the average rate of developing autism is 1% in the general population (for example), circumcision raises the chances to 1.46%. Allegedly.

Mully · Jan 11, 2015

astroturfing said:
i've always wondered why some people dismiss the possibility of mental trauma on children who've experienced the cutting of their foreskin. the best defense people seem to have is "well they won't remember it anyway, they're just babies", showing how they don't understand even the basics of how the human brain and subconscious processes work.

for me it's clear as day (i might be wrong of course but i doubt it); if you perform any painful and/or violent act on a child whose brain is in a critical development phase, it's going to have some effect. autism spectrum disorders would be a surprising result though, never would have guessed.

It happens at birth most of the time. Most, if not all credible studies point towards long term memory development happening many months later. No one remembers the most important moment of their lives, why would they remember a quick pinch afterwards?

What you're saying basically implies that any bump or prick (even from a shot) can fuck up a child's development. That's dumb.

Circumcision was probably done for a dumb reason when it began so many years ago, but multiple studies have shown how positive it is for sexual health. To say otherwise is just as dumb as your previous statement.

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

PdotMichael said:
The data don't look like they are showing a baseless correlation though, especially the study isn't the first one that showed a correlation between circumcisions and autism.

They haven't done anything to promote their thesis about how this procedure causes autism.

Bob White · Jan 11, 2015

APKmetsfan said:
The childhood trauma thesis doesn't even make sense.

What makes this procedure unique? Wouldn't general sickness be a trauma, among a thousand other things. And the whole notion of a stress response triggering autism seems suspect. There's a million things about being a baby that are stressful. Everything is new and unique something done in the first days of life triggering austism doesn't seem to me to be very likely.

Maybe evolution has told our brain not to freak out over sicknesses and other normal traumas that happen to infants. Maybe the brain is like "holy hell! someone just fucking hacked up my dick! AAHHHHH!" and it doesn't have the handles to cope with such a man made trauma.

Joey Fox · Jan 11, 2015

Do significantly more boys get autism than girls?

SamVimes · Jan 11, 2015

Joe Shlabotnik said:
It's not 46% of 300,000 cases, it's a 46% increase in the chance of developing autism according to the study.

So if the average rate of developing autism is 1% in the general population (for example), circumcision raises the chances to 1.46%. Allegedly.

I guess i was unclear (English is not my first language) but i thought it was obvious, someone would have noticed if almost half the circumcised people suffered from autism.

Dictator93 · Jan 11, 2015

Joey Fox said:
Do significantly more boys get autism than girls?

Yes, quite a bit more. Just like infant mortality and color blindness.

NYCmetsfan · Jan 11, 2015

Bob White said:
Maybe evolution has told our brain not to freak out over sicknesses and other normal traumas that happen to infants. Maybe the brain is like "holy hell! someone just fucking hacked up my dick! AAHHHHH!" and it doesn't have the handles to cope with such a man made trauma.

This doesn't line up with their thesis about stress responses which aren't cognitive processes but chemical

This also would mean babies who have surgery would have a larger risk. Wouldn't it?

deadlast · Jan 11, 2015

Joey Fox said:
Do significantly more boys get autism than girls?

You don't get autism. It is something your born with. it's a neurological disorder. More often boys are diagnosed with ASD than girls.

sprsk · Jan 11, 2015

Jackbooted said:
Is a circumcision any more traumatic than the actual act of childbirth for a baby? I would think on the spectrum of "traumatic" events for a new born being squeezed out of the mother's womb through an incredibly tight hole in to a world of sight, sound, smell and touch would rate a bit higher than having the foreskin cut. Could just be my interpretation of events though.

Exactly. Childbirth is kinda fucking huge and scary for a baby. You were inside this nice warm little dark sack for 9 months and then all of a sudden HOLY SHIT ITS COLD AND THERES LIGHT AND SOME GUYS SPANKING ME WTF I HAVE TO BREATHE? And people think a little bit of foreskin is gonna trigger autism? Yeah I'm sure it hurts like crazy, but for babies everything aside from sucking on a tit and being clean and warm absolutely sucks for them.

I wish these hacks would stop spouting bullshit to freak out paranoid mothers. Though a few more sandworms in the wild isn't such a bad thing compared to smallpox and measles.

PdotMichael · Jan 11, 2015

APKmetsfan said:
They haven't done anything to promote their thesis about how this procedure causes autism.

Again, that wasn't the goal of that paper.

Further studies will handle the question why circumcisions increase the autism risk.

shinra-bansho · Jan 11, 2015

Joe Shlabotnik said:
It's not 46% of 300,000 cases, it's a 46% increase in the chance of developing autism according to the study.

So if the average rate of developing autism is 1% in the general population (for example), circumcision raises the chances to 1.46%. Allegedly.

I haven't read the study, but I'd assume it isn't benchmarked against some generic general population risk percentage, as you're suggesting. And that some sort of inherent risk of autism increases.

It would presumably be the percentage difference in autism incidence in the two or more groups studied, i.e. circumcised and uncircumcised, probably also delineated by age of circumcision in some manner given the findings.

I'd also hazard to guess that this difference was statistically significant.

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