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Posted by Alan Holmes on 05/09/37 11:25
Jerry wrote in message
<0HLCEDAD38594.8833680556@anonymous.poster>
>August 26, 2005
>City Questions Circumcision Ritual After Baby Dies
>By ANDY NEWMAN
>A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city
>health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes - one of
>them fatal - in infants. But after months of meetings with Orthodox
>leaders, city officials have been unable to persuade them to abandon the
>practice.
>
>The city's intervention has angered many Orthodox leaders, and the issue
>has left the city struggling to balance its mandate to protect public
>health with the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.
>
>"This is a very delicate area, so to speak," said Health Commissioner
>Thomas R. Frieden.
>
>The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b'peh: after
>removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the
>blood from the wound to clean it.
I see nothing wrong with this practice.
>It became a health issue after a boy in Staten Island and twins in
>Brooklyn, circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004, contracted Type-1
>herpes. Most adults carry the disease, which causes the common cold sore,
>but it can be life-threatening for infants. One of the twins died.
>
>Since February, the mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, 57, has been under court
>order not to perform the ritual in New York City while the health
>department is investigating whether he spread the infection to the infants.
>
>Pressure from Orthodox leaders on the issue led Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
>and health officials to meet with them on Aug. 11. The mayor's comments on
>his radio program the next day seemed meant to soothe all parties and not
>upset a group that can be a formidable voting bloc: "We're going to do a
>study, and make sure that everybody is safe and at the same time, it is not
>the government's business to tell people how to practice their religion."
>
>The health department, after the meeting, reiterated that it did not intend
>to ban or regulate oral suction. But Dr. Frieden has said that the city is
>taking this approach partly because any broad rule would be virtually
>unenforceable. Circumcision generally takes place in private homes.
>
>Dr. Frieden said the department regarded herpes transmission via oral
>suction as "somewhat inevitable to occur as long as this practice
>continues, if at a very low rate."
>
>The use of suction to stop bleeding dates back centuries and is mentioned
>in the Talmud. The safety of direct oral contact has been questioned since
>the 19th century, and many Orthodox and nearly all non-Orthodox Jews have
>abandoned it. Dr. Frieden said he hoped the rabbis would voluntarily switch
>to suctioning the blood through a tube, an alternative endorsed by the
>Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis.
>
>But the most traditionalist groups, including many Hasidic sects in New
>York, consider oral suction integral to God's covenant with the Jews
>requiring circumcision, and they have no intention of stopping.
>
>"The Orthodox Jewish community will continue the practice that has been
>practiced for over 5,000 years," said Rabbi David Niederman of the United
>Jewish Organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after the meeting with the
>mayor. "We do not change. And we will not change."
>
>David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, an umbrella
>organization of Orthodox Jews, said that metzitzah b'peh is probably
>performed more than 2,000 times a year in New York City.
>
>The potential risks of oral suction, however, are not confined to Orthodox
>communities. Dr. Frieden said in March that the health department had
>fielded several calls from panicked non-Orthodox parents who had hired
>Hasidic mohels unaware of what their services entailed.
>
>Defenders of oral suction say there is no proof that it spreads herpes at
>all. They say that mohels use antiseptic mouthwash before performing oral
>suction, and that the known incidence of herpes among infants who have
>undergone it is minuscule. (The city's health department recorded cases in
>1988 and 1998, though doctors in New York, as in most states, are not
>required to report neonatal herpes.)
>
>Dr. Kenneth I. Glassberg, past president of the New York section of the
>American Urological Association and director of pediatric urology at Morgan
>Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, said that while he
>found oral suction "personally displeasing," he did not recommend that
>rabbis stop using it.
>
>"If I knew something caused a problem from a medical point of view," said
>Dr. Glassberg, whose private practice includes many Hasidic families, "I
>would recommend against it."
>
>But Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a microbiologist and professor of Talmud and
>medical ethics at Yeshiva University, said that metzitzah b'peh violates
>Jewish law.
>
>"The rule that's above all rules in the Torah is that you cannot expose or
>accept a risk to health unless there is true justification for it," said
>Dr. Tendler, co-author of a 2004 article in the journal Pediatrics that
>said direct contact posed a serious risk of infection.
>
>"Now there have been several cases of herpes in the metro area," he said.
>"Whether it can be directly associated with this mohel nobody knows. All
>we're talking about now is presumptive evidence, and on that alone it would
>be improper according to Jewish law to do oral suction."
>
>The inconsistent treatment of Rabbi Fischer himself indicates the confusion
>metzitzah b'peh has sown among health authorities, who typically regulate
>circumcisions by doctors but not religious practitioners.
>
>In Rockland County, where Rabbi Fischer lives in the Hasidic community of
>Monsey, he has been barred from performing oral suction. But the state
>health department retracted a request it had made to Rabbi Fischer to stop
>the practice. And in New Jersey, where Rabbi Fischer has done some of his
>12,000 circumcisions, the health authorities have been silent.
>
>Rabbi Fischer's lawyer, Mark J. Kurzmann, said that absent conclusive proof
>that the rabbi had spread herpes, he should be allowed to continue the
>practice. Rabbi Fischer said through Mr. Kurzmann that the twin who died
>and the Staten Island boy both had herpes-like rashes before they were
>circumcised and were seen by a pediatrician who approved their
>circumcision. The health department declined to comment on its
>investigation.
>
>
>
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