The True Cost Of Neonatal Herpes Simplex Infection

Untreated neonatal herpes simplex virus is associated with a 40 percent survival rate, and even with the early initiation of high-dose intravenous acyclovir therapy, it can result in “considerable disability among survivors.” The neonatal herpes virus can spread to the brain and central nervous system causing encephalitis and meningitis and leading to mental retardation, cerebral palsy. Herpes can also spread to internal organs, such as the liver and lungs.

Writing in The Jewish Week, Hella Winston reports:

…Unlike in New York state, which in early 2006 required that cases of herpes in infants aged 60 days or younger be reported to the health department, New Jersey does not list neonatal herpes among its list of communicable and reportable diseases. As such, it is impossible to know how many metzitzah b’peh-[MBP]-related cases may have occurred in the state, which is home to the large haredi community of Lakewood, among others.

According to a 2009 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, untreated neonatal herpes simplex virus is associated with a 40 percent survival rate, and even with the early initiation of high-dose intravenous acyclovir therapy, it can result in “considerable disability among survivors.” The neonatal herpes virus can spread to the brain and central nervous system causing encephalitis and meningitis and leading to mental retardation, cerebral palsy. Herpes can also spread to internal organs, such as the liver and lungs.

Winston also reports that the family of the baby who died from MBP-transmitted HSV-1 in Brooklyn in September are not cooperating with the investigation into the death, and in the two cases from Rockland County reported by ABC late last night, families are also stonewalling the investigation and are refusing to give the health department the name of the mohel who did the circumcision and MBP.

The just reported Rockland County cases have:

raised a red flag because Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, a mohel who has already been linked to four neonatal herpes infections (including one death) and has been under an order banning him from performing the ritual in New York state since 2007, lives in Rockland County.

While, according to Facelle, Rabbi Fischer was “certainly … well aware” of the order at the time, The Jewish Week learned that Fischer is still scheduling brises with metzitzah b’peh in Rockland County, though it has not been established that he was involved in the 2009 cases.

Read the entire article here.

Comments

[Mike]

These are the kinds of things that should be posted on the pashvekilm or whatever they're called. More can be gained from reading the posters in an elementary school than the stuff the haredim put out.
These are things they need to know.

[BetterSafe]

These are the kinds of things that should be posted on the pashvekilm or whatever they're called. More can be gained from reading the posters in an elementary school than the stuff the haredim put out.
These are things they need to know.

Posted by: Mike | March 16, 2012 at 02:21 PM

I also notice lots of haredim smoking. They should also address the dangers of lung cancer. There are lots of images available on the internet but since they don't go online and since they don't watch TV they are not exposed to the ads that explains the dangers. Someone should let then know its dangers via newspaper ads or posters.

[jewishwhistleblower]

Gary A. Gelbfish, practicing surgeon and certified mohel: "My first interaction with probable disease transmission from metzitzah b’peh (MBP) was in 1998, when an infant in my wife’s pediatric practice was treated for herpes infection of his genital area soon after a bris that included MBP."
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/opinion/debating_bris_controversy_know_medical_facts

[Reb Chaim]

What are you people making such a big deal about neonatal herpes? So what if its directly related to mbp? Our great rabbonim have ruled that mbp is the only proper way to complete brit milah and we always have to follow their directions because of daas torah. I.e., they can never be wrong, since the level of scientific knowledge that existed at the time of the gemorah is greater that what we know today. Therefore we cannot listen to so-called exoerts like Dr. Gary Geldfish who rely solely on medical science even when it conflicts with the opinions of out great sages. The bottom line therefore remains: "Keep on suckin!"

[seymour]

Posted by: Reb Chaim | March 16, 2012 at 02:40 PM

yes chazal never erred

cats have venom in their paws
the sun hide behind a filament at night
and so on

todays scientist are a joke compared to the knowledge of chazal

question, if hazal knew everything and the future why did they not discuss the Internet in the gemurath

[jewishwhistleblower]

Shafran/Agudath Israel "...the metzitzah b’peh method has been safe for thousands of years and more people die from skiing accidents than the circumcision method."

There are approximately 50-60 Million skier visits in the US per year. Approximately 34 people die a year in the US from skiing accidents. There are an estimated 2,000 - 4,000 circumcisions a year with MBP and several reported deaths. Clearly given the number of deaths, as a percentage, MBP is far more dangerous than skiing. Shafran has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer.

[seymour]

can't the government hold the parent in contempt to force them to say who is the mohel

this is going to blow up in their face and many more cases will be reveled

just like the sexual abuse cases

[jancsipista]

Lets face it this procedure is done on babies because they have no say cannot defend themselfs against it andthe hassidim are knows to pick someone with that description since they are cowards in every sense babies dont fight are the weakest in nature so why not do it until now for a thousand years no one cared as i wrote before in yiddish there is a saying az der narishkeit derlingem me meint er iz a chuchem translation if you do a foolish
act and get away with it the world will think you are smart

[Shoshi]

What are we going to do about the fact that some Chareidim believe that metzitzah b'peh is an absolutely required part of the circumcision ceremony, such that omitting it is equivalent to not having a bris at all?

It's not 100% certain that performing this procedure will result in an infection. We really do not know what the percentage is, as we only know those cases that have been reported and brought to our attention.

If we cannot legally prohibit someone from following their religion, how are we going to prevent people doing a method that they have learned and completely believe is commanded by God, in a case where the percentage risk can be perceived as very small? (After all, they could argue that there are inherent risks in so much of life, like letting kids ride bicycles, go swimming, ride in cars, eat things (since sometimes food turns out to be contaminated), etc.)

Perhaps just slap some really serious charges on any mohel who infects a child? And then will parents neglect to have their children treated, for fear of getting charged with child endangerment?

[A. Nuran]

Shoshi, we can absolutely throw people in jail for killing little children. Freedom of religion does not extend to murder.

It really is that simple.

[danny]

Freedom of religion does not allow Mormons to commit polygamy, Native Americans to consume peyote, Rastafarians to consume cannabis, or certain African/Muslim groups to perform female genital cutting. I cannot claim that my religion prevents me from paying income tax to support wars I don't believe. I'd get thrown in jail.

MBP should absolutely be prohibited by the federal laws. Where is the equal protection that we afford to infant girl genitalia? Why not afford that to baby boys?

[Black Hatter]

Let's not think that we are smarter than chazal, who were the foremost authorities on the, err, oral law.

We need to keep reminding ourselves that a horse and buggy driver who worked for chazal had a better understanding of the workings of the universe than all the Nobel scientists combined.

[Eli, apprentice messiah superstar just without the Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtrack]

Shoshi, yes.
That's what jail is for.
Drive drunk, you go to jail.
Rob a bank, go to jail
Kill a kid, go to jail
Vote Republican, go to jail.

It is that simple. Jail discourages antisocial, harmful behavior.

[jancsipista]

Black Hatter -Looks like youre black hat squashed youre brain out of existance you retard.

[Eli, apprentice messiah superstar just without the Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtrack]

Jancsispista,
I'm thinking the comment can't possibly have been serious. I mean, it would be up there will all time "most stupid thing ever said" rankings.. I'd feel sorry for BH.
Nah, it was parody. And well done.

[Levi]

Herpes can also be transmitted by kissing a baby, so I don't see the difference. In fact they should both be done with some sort of caution but to make this procedure sound dangerous is overblowing the reality.

[Jeff]

Native Americans to consume peyote, Rastafarians to consume cannabis

Actually, the law does allow the former, and I'm not certain, but I think the latter may be allowed in certain venues as well - which is not, of course, a justification for this abominable practice.

[Yochanan Lavie songwriter extraordinaire]

"...to make this procedure sound dangerous is overblowing the reality."

Posted by: Levi | March 16, 2012 at 04:57 PM

Actually, it's the charedi mohels who are "overblowing" babies.

[Haimish McHorny]

Only a religious person could be sufficiently perverted in their thinking to defend sucking the cocks of babies when there is a demonstrable danger to their lives. No rational human could possibly defend the position. Christopher Hitchens was so right. Religion really does poison everything. Even the minds of otherwise well meaning people. I am horrified again and again at the evil this stuff is.

[A E ANDERSON]

Three and a half thousand years since Sinai and now comes Shmarya to save the Jews from themselves.

I vote Shmarya for Moshiach!

Yechi! Yechi! Yechi!

[Haimish McHorny]

Sinai is a myth you moron.

As is creation

The flood

The exodus

The entry info israel by 2 million plus jews

(although i have had the argument put that archeology is unreliable. No shit sherlock. Only its less unreliable than your book of lies called the torah. And infinitely less wicked in kts prescriptions.)

[A E ANDERSON]

Please don't get me wrong... somebody's gotta do it. But it does mystify why these fundamental calls for remedial action on shlocky and indeed dangerous religious practices seem to come from Shmarya, from without, rather from the professional clerics and community leaders from within, i.e., from people who are supposedly dedicated to the well being and pastoral care of their spiritual flocks.

[Haimish McHorny]

Realising im talking to the frummers. Sinai as a mountain exists. I have been there. The story of a revelation to all israel is a bullshit story concocted well after the event. The claim of a universal revelation is a wicked lie perpetuated by people who have fewer moral scruples than a brothel keeper.

[Shmarya]

Herpes can also be transmitted by kissing a baby, so I don't see the difference.

That's because you're a fool, Levi.

[Haimish McHorny]

The clerics have never cared for their flock.

What kind of wicked sick fuck would invent an issue about masterbation and condemn millions of people throughout generations to a life riddled by guilt and sexual dysfunction?can you even begin to appreciate the degree of pure evil involved here? It is beyond comprehension! Hitler would be envious at the sheer evil involved.

And all based on what? I dont think the story of onan explains it. Maybe the toxic masturbatory habits of a couple of early christian thinkers that was then adopted by chochimim (yes fact fans they did this quite alot) as toiyreh might explain it...

[A E ANDERSON]

Sinai exists on many levels beyond the place name: it is certainly part of the Jewish people's national creation myth, something that the most rabid atheist cannot deny. In religio-moral terms, it is emblematic of the mythic covenant between God and the Hebrews. As such it has an honored place in the folkloric firmament of both Jews and Christians.

(Just because you wake up one day and decide you're an atheist, you cannot thereby erase two-plus thousand years of Western civilization and culture, no matter how offensive the theistic terms may be to you personally.)

[Haimish McHorny]

No more than can the repetition of a myth make it reality.

No matter how many opposing religions claim it as objective truth.

[Emanuel]

Anderson, I think the Torah is based on folklore stories repeated generation after generation. Only an idiot will believe the world is 6 thousand years old. Only an idiot and bigot will believe that G-d made a pact with a select group of people, who would turn on themselves at their first opportunity, as "chosen people" at the expense of the rest of the world. A god with as many human emotional traits as those found in Greek myth. Yes, G-d got pissed off, drowned everyone. Got pissed off again,sent a few meteors to burn Sodom and Gomorrah. Got really pissed off killed Egyptians and so on.

An angry and jealous god? Really? Anger and jealousy are human traits, not from a god. Whoever wrote Torah, wrote it for their audience, a bunch of misfits with superiority complex. In other words, another misfit, a little bit more intelligent and eloquent enough to have thousands of fools to believe his stories.

G-d revealed on Sinai? You can repeat a lie over and over for thousands of years and fools will definitely believe it.

I am not an atheist. I just refuse to believe in an angry bigoted god that endorses murder to achieve its goals.

Oh, not to mention sacrificing bulls, blood of a red bull to purify you etc etc.

You see how utterly foolish and mythical all this stuff sounds? No different from Greek myth, Zoroastrian myth, Christian myth and the belief that the second zombie
(the first one must have been Lazarus)is their savior, or Islamic belief that some quack is been hiding since the 1200's waiting to take over the world.

That's not the god I believe in. I am a deist. Google what that means, while keep enjoying your ignorance.

[A E ANDERSON]

Thank you Mr Emmanuel for that. Imagine what great thinkers Nietzsche and Freud would have become had you been able to clue them in to the utter worthlessness of myth, symbolism and allegory!

[Levi]

Herpes can also be transmitted by kissing a baby, so I don't see the difference.

That's because you're a fool, Levi.

Posted by: Shmarya | March 16, 2012 at 06:40 PM

Again, no logic just attacks. Please explain the difference? Oh I forgot, you don't know the first thing about herpes.

[a]

I did not realize that all orthodox Jews do metzitzah. They know it is worthless or worse yet do it because it is in the Gemarah.

[Mike]

@ BetterSafe:

Absolutely! Some of the Hassidim are freaking chimneys, yet according to the Shulchan Aruch, which they consider to be a sacred text that one must live their whole life by, says that keeping safety hazards is more important than not doing sin! And yet despite all the universal knowledge that things like smoking and certainly metzizah b'peh are life endangering, it is the biggest hypocrisy of all that they don't, and their "gedolim" find it more important to tell everyone to pray for convicted felons.

[reb chaim]

The greatest sin that haredim commit is that they put their brains in cold storage and turn over all important decisions in their lives to their rabbeim. If these leaders are competent, then things usually turn out okay. But as we have seen all too often, this is not always true and so all of kinds of stupidities are committed by these zombies. Until this situation fundamentally changes, we will continue to witness nonsense like mbp. I am not optimistic however that such a fundamental shift will ever occur in our lifetimes.

[SkepticalYid]

Levi: herpes transmission via metzitzah goes into an open would directly into the bloodstream. The immune system of an infant is reliant solely on passive immunity from the mother. If she doesn't have herpes antibodies, neither will the infant. That's the difference.

[Michael from Lakewood]

Herpes can also be transmitted by kissing a baby, so I don't see the difference.

That's because you're a fool, Levi.

Posted by: Shmarya | March 16, 2012 at 06:40 PM

Again, no logic just attacks. Please explain the difference? Oh I forgot, you don't know the first thing about herpes.

Posted by: Levi | March 17, 2012 at 06:58 PM

Here is the difference:

No one should kiss a baby on it's mouth.
No one should kiss a baby on an open wound.
No one with HSV should kiss a baby anywhere. Not in the face of what we know now.

[Shoshi]

Freedom of religion does not allow Mormons to commit polygamy, Native Americans to consume peyote, Rastafarians to consume cannabis, or certain African/Muslim groups to perform female genital cutting. I cannot claim that my religion prevents me from paying income tax to support wars I don't believe. I'd get thrown in jail.

MBP should absolutely be prohibited by the federal laws. Where is the equal protection that we afford to infant girl genitalia? Why not afford that to baby boys?

Posted by: danny | March 16, 2012 at 04:10 PM

Absolutely agree that we DO not allow people to break existing laws for religious reasons. Laws against polygamy and drug-taking don't only apply to people doing it for religious reasons. But a law against this would be specific, because NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS.

Yes, we can jail people whose actions have led to illness, injury, or death. I am talking about banning the practice outright. Can we do this within the parameters on not interfering with religious practice, on the basis that it *sometimes* leads to health problems?

[Levi]

Here is the difference:

No one should kiss a baby on it's mouth.
No one should kiss a baby on an open wound.
No one with HSV should kiss a baby anywhere. Not in the face of what we know now.

Posted by: Michael from Lakewood | March 17, 2012 at 09:32 PM

You're basically saying there is no difference; you're saying that you should be cautious with both, and I agree with that.

[Shoshi]

No one should kiss a baby on an open wound.

No more kissing baby's booboos??