Rare Circumcision Ritual Carries Herpes Risk
Posted August 3rd, 2004 by jack
in
An interesting piece in WebMD today about a rare Jewish ritual that involves the person performing the circumcision to suck the blood of the circumcised penis after performing the operation.
researchers in Israel have documented eight cases in which male infants became infected with the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) after undergoing circumcision that included direct oral-genital contact between the infant and the circumciser (mohel). One of the infants suffered brain damage as the result of his infection.
See the full story here.
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"Pediatrics" article
The orignal article appeared here:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/2/e259?
The article is conjecture from beginning to end. There is no conclusive link in any case cited. The following are quotes from the article:
"may" be hazardous to the neonate/
"most probably" as a consequence of/
"it is likely" that other infants were infected/
"We suspect", therefore/
"it was most likely" that the infection was transmitted/
represents a "potential source" of orogenital transmission/
however, "the possibility" that some previous cases were not reported/
this "potentially" life-threatening medical complication/
oral metzitzah "may" cause oral–genital transmission/
oral suction "may" not only endanger the child/
which "might" endanger the newborns/
That's conclusive??The articles contains several mistakes as well as outright lies. The article states "this procedure was repeated several times until bleeding stopped" False. The procedure is done once and the wound bandaged. The article states that Semmelweiss "established the principles of hygiene and disease transmission, after neonatal tuberculosis was documented after circumcision by an infected mohel" False. I did not find this reference anywhere. Semmelweis established the principles of hygiene and disease transmission while trying to get the 13% maternity death rate in his hospital down to the 2% as in the midwifery. He accomplished this by having the doctors leaving the autopsy room wash their hands before delivering babies. One of the authors has been ranting against MBP for over 2 years now without having provided one single documented case. He slandered the Mohel who has since tested negative on several occasions.