Metzitzah B'peh Part 5

Jewishweek: Opposition is building to a city Health Department campaign to warn new Jewish parents against a circumcision procedure it describes as life threatening — even before the plan is launched. In a full-page ad in last week’s Brooklyn Orthodox paper, The Jewish Press, a new group calling itself Friends of Bris Milah (ritual circumcision) urged parents to call a 24-hour hot line “to report any conversation initiated by doctors, hospitals and other professional caregivers” regarding the procedure known as metzitzah b’peh. Describing the plan as “a giant step leading to a ban” on the procedure, the hot-line message asked callers to leave the names of any health professional making “negative statements ... against our mesorah [tradition]” and specifics about what was said, where and when. The information will be used to prepare for “future action,” the message said, raising the possibility of protests and pressure on specific caregivers. Efforts to reach Rabbi S.F. Zimmerman of Monsey, identified in the ad as a recipient of contributions to the group, went unanswered. But sources in the Satmar chasidic community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn said the group was tied to the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, a Satmar rabbinic organization that has taken a lead in opposing city plans. The same group met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion to protest the plan in an exchange on Jan. 5. City officials described their plans, first announced more than a month ago, as unchanged despite the moves. They disavow any intent to seek a ban. “The details of our community outreach are still being finalized,” said Health Department spokesman Andrew Tucker, “but the plan remains to distribute [information about metzitzah b’peh] to parents of newborns in hospitals. We expect this to begin over the next several weeks.” The information sheets, to be distributed at hospitals used heavily by the Orthodox community, alert parents of male newborns to risks the Health Department has found in the practice. The procedure, in which the mohel orally sucks blood from the site of the genital cut, has been blamed for transmitting several cases of life-threatening genital herpes to newborns. Type 1 herpes is a common virus carried by the majority of adults with no harm, but it can cause brain damage or death if passed to newborns, who have little immunity. The department has identified seven such cases since 1988, including five in the last two years. They include one child who died and two who suffered significant brain damage. David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, an Orthodox umbrella group, estimates some 2,500 metzitzah b’peh procedures are performed annually in the five boroughs. Even within the Orthodox community, the practice is far from universal....