By order of the non-doctor

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not say, in yesterday’s cabinet meeting, that circumcision causes autism. But the fact that we’d even consider that a real statement shows just how far down the rabbit hole into the MAHA Wonderland of his mind RFK has dragged us. In fact, RFK said that after doctors circumcise boys, they give them too much Tylenol, and that causes autism. President “Don’t Take Tylenol” responded, “there’s a tremendous amount of proof or evidence. I would say as a non-doctor, but I’ve studied this a long time.” 

A non-doctor is right, and I say this as someone who’s not a fan of male circumcision, a practice based on dated religious superstition. If we abhor female circumcision as a barbaric practice (and we should), then why is male circumcision any different? This is a personal issue for me. My wife didn’t want to circumcise our son more than 20 years ago, but my Jewish parents, now deceased, threatened to disown him, and me, if we didn’t do it. There was no bris. We didn’t enjoy wine and bagels afterwards. A urologist strapped our baby to a board and caused him untold pain, for no reason. I’ll never be able to unhear those screams.  

Thank you for allowing me to process that trauma. But the point here is that the doctor probably gave our son Tylenol, and our son doesn’t have autism. I’m also circumcised, as are most men I know, or at least I assume they are. We don’t talk about such things. No one ever interviewed me for the studies that RFK cited at the cabinet meeting. “Circumcision leads to autism” is just embarrassing crankery that plays on people’s emotions.  

Then, on the same day we saw “RFK claims circumcision causes autism” headlines, the Wall Street Journal decided to run a light feature story on RFK’s strange habit of working out wearing jeans. They show photos of him bench-pressing in denim and climbing Phoenix’s Camelback Mountain in denim. I grew up in Phoenix and did that Camelback hike many times. It’s no fun in workout shorts; hiking in jeans is suicide.  

We live in interesting health times, where the Health Secretary issues a joint “fitness challenge” with the Secretary of War, does a gym circuit wearing Levis, and claims that vaccines and Tylenol cause autism. At least there’s no more Red Dye #12 in our beef tallow Steak and Shake fries. And I have to wonder if this is actually making us healthier, or if we’re just fetishizing the lifestyle eccentricities of a wealthy bulked-up falconer from America’s most famous political family.  

This movement is starting to feel like a mirror image of the “more doctors smoke Camels” ads that the tobacco industry used to produce. In 1930, Lucky Strike said that “20,679 Physicians say ‘LUCKIES are less irritating” because of a “toasting” process. Millions of people died because of those campaigns. 

It’s a long way down the path from that to MAHA claiming that sugar is poison (true) and that brief morning exposure to sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythms (also true). So let’s bring it all together and list my true prescription for a healthy life: eat moderately, exercise often but not excessively, don’t smoke, don’t get circumcised, DON’T TAKE TYLENOL, and, for god’s sake, don’t climb a mountain in jeans.