A 2-week-old baby in New York has died after being circumcised by a Jewish mohel. The infant reportedly contracted herpes when the mohel put his mouth on the baby's penis to suck away blood, part of a religious ritual called the metzitzah b'peh, which is sometimes a component of a bris. Although the death occurred in September, it was not made public until Saturday, when the New York Daily News published a story.
Avi Billet is South Florida rabbi and mohel who performs the metzitzah b'peh -- but in a way that does not involve direct contact with his mouth.
He was initially skeptical of the Daily News story, believing it served only to reignite fears
from 2005, when several babies in the New York area contracted herpes
and at least one died. In the wake of those incidents, the New York City
Health Department investigated and issued a fact sheet on metzitzeh b'peh.
"There
is a safe way to do it with a sterilized tube that is harmless to the
baby and still fulfills the Talmudic requirements," Billet told New Times before directing us to his website. There, he quotes the passage in the Talmud
that explains how to properly perform a bris. The passage says to "draw
out blood," but this phrase has been interpreted differently by various
Jews. While Reform Jews and Conservative Jews often
skip this step during a bris, Billet says Orthodox Jews usually perform it. Yet
even within Orthodox Judiasm, there is a debate on how to go about it. Some mohels -- usually within the Hassidic sect -- will suck the
blood away with their mouths. (This is how babies have gotten infected.)
Others, like Billet, say it is acceptable to place a sterile glass tube
between the mohel's mouth and the baby's penis to avoid direct
contact.
"As a Jew, I perform the metzitzeh b'peh," Billet
says," but as a normal thinking person of the 21st Century, I don't
think it's wise to have the mouth touching an open wound." He has
written extensively about how mohels should handle bris ceremonies responsibly.
It's
difficult to gather reliable statistics about how many babies die from
circumcisions or complications from the procedure. Tim O'Connor,
spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Health Department, says he
doesn't think it's possible to track that data because if a baby were to
die from a circumcision, "hemorrhage" or "infection" would likely be
listed as the cause of death. Jenny Mackie, a spokesperson for Broward
General Medical Center, says that the hospital does not keep statistics on
circumcision complications and that, anecdotally, maternity nurses she
asked could not recall any deaths.
One study estimated that 117 boys die each year in the U.S. from circumcision; one critic of that study, however, says the rate is more like 2.6 deaths in 1.3 million circumcisions.
Some activists who oppose circumcision have dedicated web pages to documenting circumcision-related deaths and exploring related issues. See here and here .
For more about their movement, read last month's feature story.
