Religion
In reply to the discussion: NYC Orthodox Jews negotiate over right to give babies herpes and brain damage, and kill them [View all]enough
(13,309 posts)snip from the article>
A 2012 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against the practice, saying it increases the risk of herpes infection in baby boys by 3.4 times that of other male newborns.
Oral suction circumcisions first came under scrutiny during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, and the city's health board voted in 2012 to regulate the practice by asking a parent or guardian to sign a consent form indicating possible risks. Health officials point to a number of factors they say have linked the known cases to the ritual. They look for lesions on the genitalia, indicating that's where the virus started. In addition, lab tests have showed that the timing of the infection coincides with the circumcision.
Two cases were recorded after oral suction in 2013 and four last year. In the most recent case, diagnosed in November, a baby boy was found to have lesions on his penis. But of those six cases, parents refused to identify the person who performed the circumcision called a mohel in four. In the two cases in which the circumcisers were identified, both declined to be tested, the Health Department said. They were banned from performing the ritual.
The consent forms remain the regulatory standard for now, but most ultra-Orthodox rabbis have told their faithful not to comply, and the city acknowledges it does not collect them unless there is suspicion of herpes. Cohn, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor and native of what today is called Slovakia, is chairman of the American Board of Ritual Circumcision, which has certified 90 mohels, says he doubts the oral suction method had anything to do with spreading herpes. Cohn believes the infants may have been infected by the mother or another source.
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