Rabbi probed for circumcised infants' herpes (MSNBC)

[truthpusher]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6898403/

Rabbi probed for circumcised infants' herpes
Baby died from disease after undergoing procedureMSNBC staff and news service reports

Updated: 11:50 a.m. ET Feb. 2, 2005City health officials are investigating the death of a baby boy who was one of three infants to contract herpes after a rabbi circumcised them.

Ten days after Rabbi Yitzhok Fischer performed religious circumcisions on twins last October, one died of herpes and the other tested positive for the virus, according to a complaint filed by the health department in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The complaint, reported in Wednesday’s edition of the New York Daily News, also said health officials later found a third baby who had contracted herpes after being circumcised by Fischer in late 2003.

Under Jewish law, a mohel — someone who performs circumcisions — draws blood from the circumcision wound. Most mohels do it by hand with a suction device, but Fischer uses a practice rare outside strict Orthodox groups where he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin.

Herpes can cause potentially severe complications for infants because of their undeveloped immune systems. A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that the rare ritual puts newborns at serious risk of contracting herpes simplex virus and shouldn't be performed as part of the circumcision procedure.

more:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6898403/

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

1. Yuck!

The whole circumcision thing is totally disgusting and unnecessary in this day.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. OK..so if you are orthodox, it's a religious practice and if you aren't

it's lewd and lascivious conduct?

[booksenkatz]

3. It's like flag burning, NSMA:

It all depends on what is going on in your mind at the time -- that determines the criminality of your action (or lack of).
:crazy:

[Cato1]

4. Jeesh...

"Most mohels do it by hand with a suction device, but Fischer uses a practice rare outside strict Orthodox groups where he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin."

Really, this stuff about Rabbis sucking bleeding infant penises sounds like something straight out of the protocols of the elders of Zion or some blood libel story cooked up by the nazis. I had no idea this is going on at this day and age. I wonder what kind of parents would make their baby boy go through such a disgusting thing.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Religous and traditional

Those are the types of parents who would allow this.

The practice should end as there is a proven danger but your condemnation of it as disgusting is more than a little intolerant of beliefs that are very old.

[Boomer]

8. Some traditions do seem a little strange...

...when viewed in the context of contemporary social norms and contemporary issues such as child molestation. I have no problem with the circumcision itself (besides I'm a girl, so my opinion doesn't really count), but:

"...he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin."

C'mon now, that's really pushing the envelope of acceptability even in the Jewish community, where this practice is rare. I should hope it IS rare. Sheesh.

[Goldmund]

10. oh please

So, what you're saying is, basically, this: there's a stimulus X, and your impulsive human reaction Y. But before one can express Y, he or she needs to go and Google X and see if it's a religious or traditional practice anywhere; if it is, then it's inappropriate to express Y.

I think that the notion that what is religious or traditional has an intrinsically higher value and a protected status over what is individual or non-traditional is one of those vestiges of bigotry that still remains strong in politically correct liberalism.

Another example of that is that one can be a conscientious objector on religious grounds, but not on the grounds of personal philosophy. It's an equivalent thing... If I came up with a practice to cut off babies' foreskins before I suck on their dicks I'd end up in a mental hospital. But this way, according to you, it's not even cool to call it disgusting; after all, a mentally deranged moron came up with it 5000 years ago, so it must be cool.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

14. I am a Jew and have never heard of this before, and I was immediately

disgusted by it. This is not a "normal" bris.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

5. "Probed" and "herpes" in the same headline....yuck. n/t

JB

[LizW]

6. Oy.

I'm sorry. He may be a respected and caring rabbi, but his practice may have killed this baby and given two others an incurable disease.

He needs to be prevented from doing this procedure anymore.

I have the utmost respect for religious traditions and practices, but if part of infants' genitals must be cut off, couldn't the practice at least adhere to a standard of sanitation that doesn't put the infant's life at risk?

[Richard Steele]

9. His MOUTH??? WTF***????????

Just flabbergasted....again, WTF?????

And have I mentioned: WTF?

[truthisfreedom]

11. this is too sick in too many ways to contemplate.

it should be illegal for at least 3 different reasons.

[Donailin]

12. Good God, this is sick.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. This is sickening. I wonder if the parents knew that he used this

"procedure"?

I had the same mohel for both of my sons, and I checked his references before I hired him.

He was so good, that my across the hall neighbor during my first son's cirmcumcision said that if she had a son, she would want to use him rather than a surgeon. She was Catholic and a surgical nurse.

[VegasWolf]

15. Yet another of the many reasons I laugh at religion. n/t

[Fenris]

16. Wow that's fucked up.