> Previous preliminary research has reported an association between circumcision and alexithymia (i.e., dysfunctions in emotion recognition, social attachment, and interpersonal relations) in adults (Bollinger and Van Howe, 2011). More recently, two large-sample studies suggested a positive correlation between circumcision and autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Bauer and Kriebel, 2013; Frisch and Simonsen, 2015a). Although the causal implications of this research has been questioned (Morris et al., 2012; Morris and Wiswell, 2015), these studies suggest that early-circumcision might have an impact on adult psychosocial functioning.

This can't be right...one of those correlation is not causation situations?

I hesitate to take the side of Brian J. "B.J." Morris (a contentious individual, to be polite) but here we are.

US surgery rates have been declining since the 60s as autism diagnoses increase. Half the population in Israel, the Middle East and southeast Asia should be autistic by now.

I don't see where they looked at how many intact kids were diagnosed with autism, only that there's a "positive association" with circumcision, which means little. We fell for that logic once already with the HIV prevention claims. Fool us twice and we...can't get circumcised again?

This is interesting though:

> Circumcised infants display increased pain responses during subsequent vaccination, suggesting that behavioral effects of the surgery can last, at a minimum, up to 4–6 months

And this:

> Finally, one recent study has found that neonatal male circumcision and prematurity were associated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), providing support for the allostatic load hypothesis (i.e., the result of cumulative perinatal painful, stressful, or traumatic events) as an explanation for SIDS (Elhaik, 2018).

Circumcision, vaccinations, autism, SIDS all mentioned in the same context...

Girls don't get clipped but everybody gets vaccines. Most other cultures that snip boys tend to wait until puberty. They also inconsistently vaccinate and don't have mysterious infant death syndromes.

Maybe there's something to avoiding causing infants pain.