Infants Contract Herpes From Oral Suction During Jewish Circumcision

Two New York City infants were diagnosed with herpes after undergoing a traditional Orthodox Jewish circumcision, NBC4 reports. According to the Health Department, both babies developed lesions on their genitals shortly after having the metzitzah bpeh, a practice in which the mohel a person trained to perform the covenant of circumcision uses a direct oral suction technique to swab blood from the infants penis, was performed on them. More than half of all adults carry the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1), according to Brian F. Leas, a research analyst in the Center for Evidencebased Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. But the symptoms that present in those adults are oral lesions, or cold sores, and not lifethreatening. In infants, however, HSV1 can cause high fever and seizures and in two cases since 1998, even death. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss. Read