First Baby In 2017 Is Diagnosed With Herpes After Oral Suction Circumcision

BROOKLYN, NY — The city's health department this week confirmed the first case in 2017 of a baby getting neonatal herpes following a controversial Jewish circumcision process. Metzitzah b'peh was performed on the baby, which is a ritual where a mohel, or trusted religious circumciser, uses his mouth to suck blood away from the circumcision wound on the infant's penis, the department said. The health department calls metzitzah b'peh "direct orogenital suction," or DOS, and said it can transmit herpes to newborn males.

Since 2000, there have been 24 confirmed cases of herpes infection following DOS, according to the health department. Two of the 24 babies died, and at least two others suffered brain damage.

In 2016, there were two confirmed herpes cases following DOS, and in 2015 there were three, according to the health department. This is the first confirmed case of herpes following DOS in 2017. The baby was put on an intravenous antiviral for 14 days.

Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015 took away Michael Bloomberg's mandated consent form that had to be signed by parents before DOS, saying herpes was still reported even after the forms were introduced. Instead, the mayor implemented a plan for the health department to disseminate informational pamphlets and posters in English and Yiddish about a safe bris to obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians and hospitals treating Orthodox Jewish families.

The department is emphasizing that health care providers should give expectant religious parents this educational brochure.

A health department spokesperson told Patch that she wanted to make it clear this is not an outbreak of herpes.

DOS first came from the Mishnah, a highly regarded ancient book of redacted Jewish oral traditions, according to Israeli publication Haaretz. In the Mishnah, the 4th century rabbi Papa of Babylon wrote that a mohel who didn't perform DOS should be fired because he was potentially endangering the infant's health. In the following centuries, medicine advanced, but many ultra-Orthodox jews still staunchly follow the rabbi's directions in the Mishnah.

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