MbP and Herpes - Alive and Well

Circumcision - tools of the trade (JTA)

Jewish newborns are still at risk for an entirely preventable health problem in the form of MbP (Metzitza B’Peh or Metzitza b’Feh if you prefer the more grammatically correct term). Little has changed. The Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 (the common cold sore) is alive and well and still available to seriously affect the health of your child.

In a public lecture last February in London, Schachter, who is a rosh yeshiva, or senior chief rabbinic authority, at Y.U.’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, claimed that his daughter’s hospital treated three cases per year of Hasidic babies infected with herpes. The infections were “obviously because of metzitzah b’peh,” Schachter told his audience. 

The New York City Health Department said it cannot complete an investigation into who infected four infants with herpes through a circumcision rite because the boys’ fervently Orthodox families will not identify the mohels. 

“Unfortunately, some in the community are resistant to sharing the name of the mohels,” Health Department spokesman Christopher Miller told DNA info New York on Tuesday. “This is a very insular community.” 

According to DNAinfo, six families in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, have seen children contract herpes since 2015 from metzitzah b’peh, which involves the ritual circumciser, or mohel, cleaning the circumcision wound by oral suction. Among the six families, only two have provided the names of their mohels, Miller said. 

In March, the city ordered those two mohels to stop performing metzitzah b’peh.