US Health Secretary RFK Jr claims circumcised boys are more likely to be autistic
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Health Secretary, has made another bizarre claim about autism following the unproven insistence that the painkiller Tylenol causes it.
You might remember last month that RFK Jr and Donald Trump made what seemed like it was going to be a big announcement as they claimed that babies were getting autism from their pregnant mothers taking painkillers.
At least that's what they said, experts from across the scientific community responded by saying there was 'no evidence of a link' between the two things, which is the polite way of saying something is most likely very wrong.
The company that makes Tylenol has said it 'strongly disagrees' with the claims made by Trump and RFK Jr, while the National Autistic Society criticised the claims as 'dangerous, anti-science and irresponsible'.
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That hasn't stopped RFK Jr from banging the same drum again, and this time claiming circumcision may have something to do with it.
During a cabinet meeting, he claimed that young boys who were circumcised had higher rates of autism and pointed the finger at them being given painkillers.
He said: "There’s two studies which show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, it’s highly likely, because they were given Tylenol."
He also slammed people who took the painkiller while pregnant, saying they were 'irresponsible' and claimed 'we're doing the studies to make the proof'.
RFK Jr also hit out at a TikTok he claimed he'd seen in which he alleged a pregnant woman was taking Tylenol and criticising Trump.
In the same meeting, he also claimed that the pregnant woman was doing that 'with a baby in her placenta', which anyone with a basic knowledge of human anatomy would know was incorrect since the baby is in the uterus and the placenta is a temporary organ which forms in the uterus during pregnancy.
One of the studies RFK Jr appears to have been talking about is some research released in 2015 from Denmark which looked at the correlation between the two but did not investigate causation.
Their findings were criticised by other researchers who called the initial study 'flawed' and kicked off an argument waged over the pages of the National Library of Medicine.
Mel Merritt, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the National Autistic Society, spoke out against the initial claim that painkillers cause autism, saying: "Let's be clear - painkillers do not cause autism and vaccines do not cause autism.
"Large-scale studies have shown that there is no robust, scientific evidence to support this claim. It’s nothing more than fear mongering.
"The incessant misinformation about autism from President Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr risks undermining decades of research by respected experts in the field."
Joe Harker