RCA Backtracks On Metzitzah B'Peh Circumcisions

The RCA press release issued today in support of Agudath Israel of America and Satmar notably does not mention any of the documented dangers of metzitzah b'peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bleeding-penis sucking done by many haredi mohels immediately after cutting off the baby's foreskin. Instead, it references the deaths, maming, horrible pain and suffering and permanent brain damage that can come from MBP-transmitted herpes only in passing as "health concerns."

The RCA press release issued today in support of Agudath Israel of America and Satmar notably does not mention any of the documented dangers of metzitzah b'peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bleeding-penis sucking done by many haredi mohels immediately after cutting off the baby's foreskin. Instead, it references the deaths, maming, horrible pain and suffering and permanent brain damage that can come from MBP-transmitted herpes only in passing as "health concerns" and "unintended spread of infection":

The RCA, Calling for Safe Circumcision Practices, Disapproves of Unilateral Government Regulation         

Sep 10, 2012 -- The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the largest group of Orthodox rabbis in the world, in light of the pending directive of the New York City's Health Department for parents to sign statements of informed consent prior to the performance of "metzitzah be-peh" (direct oral suction of the wound) as part of the traditional Bris Milah (circumcision), states:

Many Jewish legal authorities have ruled that direct oral suction is not an integral part of the circumcision ritual, and therefore advocate the use of a sterile tube to preclude any risk of infection. The RCA has gone on record as accepting the position of those authorities. Nevertheless, the RCA respects the convictions and sensitivities of those in the Orthodox Jewish community who disagree with this ruling and joins in their deep concern about government regulation of religious practices. The RCA urges these groups to voluntarily develop procedures to effectively prevent the unintended spread of infection.

The RCA supports the recent call of the Agudath Israel of America to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Health Department that, instead of unilaterally imposing regulations, they collaborate with Orthodox Jewish leadership to develop protocols to address health concerns.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, the RCA President, summarized his organization's position. "The act of circumcision is a precious and cherished ritual for the Jewish community, one which initiates our sons into the religious covenant. The RCA maintains that parents should use methods, in strict conformity with Jewish law, which enable them to hand down our religious legacy to a new generation safely and appropriately."

RCA Statement On Metzitzah B’peh
(Monday, September 10th, 2012)
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the largest group of Orthodox rabbis in the world, in light of the pending directive of the New York City’s Health Department for parents to sign statements of informed consent prior to the performance of “metzitzah be-peh” (direct oral suction of the wound) as part of the traditional Bris Milah (circumcision), states:

Many Jewish legal authorities have ruled that direct oral suction is not an integral part of the circumcision ritual, and therefore advocate the use of a sterile tube to preclude any risk of infection. The RCA has gone on record as accepting the position of those authorities. Nevertheless, the RCA respects the convictions and sensitivities of those in the Orthodox Jewish community who disagree with this ruling and joins in their deep concern about government regulation of religious practices. The RCA urges these groups to voluntarily develop procedures to effectively prevent the unintended spread of infection.

The RCA supports the recent call of the Agudath Israel of America to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Health Department that, instead of unilaterally imposing regulations, they collaborate with Orthodox Jewish leadership to develop protocols to address health concerns.


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Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, the RCA President, summarized his organization’s position. “The act of circumcision is a precious and cherished ritual for the Jewish community, one which initiates our sons into the religious covenant. The RCA maintains that parents should use methods, in strict conformity with Jewish law, which enable them to hand down our religious legacy to a new generation safely and appropriately.”

Comments

[seymour]

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, the RCA President, summarized his organization’s position. “The act of circumcision is a precious and cherished ritual for the Jewish community, one which initiates our sons into the religious covenant. The RCA maintains that parents should use methods, in strict conformity with Jewish law, which enable them to hand down our religious legacy to a new generation safely and appropriately.”

so what does this have to do with MP which is not and never was really part of a bris?

it seems all are afraid of the ultra Orthodox and afraid to confront them head on. sad very sad

[jancsibacsi]

Of course they get away with murder for evil to triuph good people just have to do nothing,or the good people are so terrorized by the ultras that they fear to express their true feelings about mbp its sick and getting sicker out there.

[Dan O.]

It's more important to close ranks and maintain authority than a child or two, more or less.

[effie]

Let's even the playing field: When haredi adults have medical procedures, medical personnel shall use no gloves or masks and there will be no scrubbing or washing of hands.

[Deremes]

Amazing that non of the rabbinic authorities has any concerns for young Jewish lives. What have we come to.
BTW,i heard Dr.Gelbfish who himself as a mohel stopped doing MBP say on the zev Brenner show that people should ask their rav what to do about MBP,if i heard correctly.He also said that its a very rare thing that something should happen from MBP.
I wonder why ALL rabbonim are fighting for MBP what interest do they have?Of course all who say its about power have no clue what they are talking.

Is the RCA breaking with Dr.Tendler?

[I don't get it]

If the Hassids are at war with the Bloomberg administration re MbP, why did they host Mayor Bloomberg in Boro Park just a few days ago and give him so much honor?

A reward for his work for SSM and against MbP?

Details at http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/138960/William-Nussen-Hosts-Mayor-Bloomberg-In-Celebration-of-Wallenberg-Centennial.html?

[Dan O.]

"Of course all who say its about power have no clue what they are talking."

That'll do for confirmation.

[MBP]

I wonder why ALL rabbonim are fighting for MBP what interest do they have?Of course all who say its about power have no clue what they are talking.

It's obvious - the rabbis love to suck babies penis!

[Alter Kocker]

Let's even the playing field: When haredi adults have medical procedures, medical personnel shall use no gloves or masks and there will be no scrubbing or washing of hands.

Posted by: effie | September 10, 2012 at 11:40 AM

Effie-let's take it just a little further, in order to adequately replicate the danger imposed by MBP, the surgeon or his designate must spit into the patient's open wound. The surgeon should also be encouraged not to wash his hands after urinating or defecating prior to performing any procedure on a Haredi male.

[A. Nuran]

effie writes:
Let's even the playing field: When haredi adults have medical procedures, medical personnel shall use no gloves or masks and there will be no scrubbing or washing of hands.

Works for me.

[Garnel Ironheart]

This is so disappointing. The RCA could have stood out and struck an important, independent position but instead caved in to the "frummer" cousins.
I wonder why. Maybe they were quietly told that unless they tow the line all their conversions and kashrus supervisions would be declared invalid?

[Number's dont lie]

Shmarya,

Its time for you to admit the real documented risk factor :

0.0001% risk of being infected(not dying) due to MBP

0.0024 of children that had MBP were infected a fraction of those were pertinently damaged. And if you subtract the number of infants with herpes in the general population only there is only a 0.0001% risk of being infected(not dying) due to MBP

[Shmarya]

Posted by: Number's dont lie | September 10, 2012 at 01:05 PM

It's long past the time that you stop lying, stop posting false numbers, and stop tolling.

Your rabbis killed and matmed babies.

And you are helping them continue to do so.

[uri]

New Shuvu Org. will open, and ask all boys that susupect that they did not have a propper Metzitza, can come in and have it done by Chasidik Rabbis.

[Deremes]

Posted by: Number's dont lie | September 10, 2012 at 01:05 PM

As im being told here on FM that i am a dumb illiterate haredi imbecile.So please help me with math.
How much is ELEVEN out of FORTY THREE THOUSAND?

[Deremes]

I meant how much percent

[rebeljew]

Deremes

Vioxx was banned for less. And in the case of Vioxx, there was not direct proof that the drug caused the strokes. There is far more evidence that the herpes were connected to the practice of MbP. (And no, it is not a "chiyuv".)

[Darth Zeidah]

"As im being told here on FM that i am a dumb illiterate haredi imbecile.So please help me with math. How much is ELEVEN out of FORTY THREE THOUSAND?"

0.02558139534883721% seeing you asked, but E&OE always applies.

[Deremes]

Posted by: rebeljew | September 10, 2012 at 01:54 PM

Not to of a good comparison.
Vioxx if there is concern that it hurts no big deal to ban the only who looses out is the mfg who wont make any money.
Metzitzah B'peh to the "few" who follow it IT IS part of the bris and it is a chiyuv.
Kitniyes on pesach to the Sephardim its allowed and to the Ashkenazim it is like chometz.
They also claim that they don't have ANY proof whatsoever that it kills,maims or infects babies.There is no reason why they should lie.The ones who are fighting against it is self explanatory why they would want to ban it.

Also,why the consent letter if MBP KILLS and MAIMS why not make it illegal??

[Shmarya]

Also,why the consent letter if MBP KILLS and MAIMS why not make it illegal??

Posted by: Deremes | September 10, 2012 at 02:23 PM

Because they know idiots like you will do it anyway.

By requiring informed consent and making the mohel legally responsible for getting the consent signed and filed with the city, if a baby gets herpes from MBP and the parents won't say who the mohel was, the city can check the forms.

And if no form was filed, the city can easily prosecute the parents for obstruction of justice, child endangerment, etc., unless they tell the city the truth.

And that's what your rabbis can't allow.

[Deremes]

I don't get it.
MBP KILLS and maims babies and the government city,state,federal wont make it illegal becuase they know people wont listen?
The ONLY reason for being against the consent is the city should not tell people how to practice their religion.It starts with MBP then they will say they have proof that ONE out of FIFTY THOUSAND babies died of a bris so lets outlaw circumcision.Therefore WE need to fight this legally what ever it takes.

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Also,why the consent letter if MBP KILLS and MAIMS why not make it illegal??

Posted by: Deremes | September 10, 2012 at 02:23 PM

Because they know idiots like you will do it anyway.

Posted by: Shmarya | September 10, 2012 at 02:30 PM

What a stupid comment. Do you actually believe that? Since when did that stop the govt from outlawing something that kills.

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Also,why the consent letter if MBP KILLS and MAIMS why not make it illegal??

Posted by: Deremes | September 10, 2012 at 02:23 PM

Because they know idiots like you will do it anyway.

Posted by: Shmarya | September 10, 2012 at 02:30 PM

What a stupid comment. Do you actually believe that? Since when did that stop the govt from outlawing something that kills.

Posted by: Lubavitchers are Christians | September 10, 2012 at 04:22 PM

Then again..... abortion

[NEo-Conservaguy]

I wonder why. Maybe they were quietly told that unless they tow the line all their conversions and kashrus supervisions would be declared invalid?

Again?

This is a poorly conceived position for the RCA to take for such a clear health risk. The question in my mind is whether the debate is internal to the RCA or the result of external influence. I'm not so sure it isn't internal, based upon their right-wing kashrut positions. One internal "no" position with respect to kosher status means the RCA will not certify something.

[Rebitzman]

Vioxx was banned for less

The incident rate with Vioxx was (and I assume is) about .007% or about 140,000 people and the drug was pulled Merck, not the government.  By the most extreme of numbers, this rate is 100 times that of Herpes infection through direct oral suction.

Given that after consideration of the risk, it was decided that the FDA perhaps over reacted and they decided to lift the ban and allow Vioxx to be sold (same risks, same side effects, same dosage) I would suggest you might want to find another example.

All that said, I remain extremely opposed to MBP.  There is no single hallachic reason for it and I believe continuation of it provides the opponents of Brit Millah their single strongest argument.  Bottom line, if we don't regulate ourselves and how we apply the archaic and non- hallachic aspects of our faith, the government WILL step in and regulate it for us.  

In that regard your example of Vioxx, is an excellent one.

[Rebitzman]

2nd paragraph muddy - Merck was concerned the FDA would over react, so they acted......

[dh]

It already is a crime to pass on herpes. But as with Fischer, it is not enforced.

Like Deremes, the haredi youth never had those connect-a-dot activity books so presently they cannot make the mental leap from infectious herpes to mbp. Sprinkle a little taste of perversion on top and it takes away all thoughts of disabled and dead baby bodies. And then ...well, you can't have just one.

[Barry]

Numbers can and often do lie.

From Wikipedia

"Denial (also called abnegation) is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may use:

simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether
minimisation: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)
projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility by blaming somebody or something else."

Doctors are as human as everyone else and if a baby falls ill or dies because of a procedure they believe could well be unethical and which they would otherwise feel duty bound to protest, they may go into denial as to the true cause of death or injury.

There is some concern that when the figures given for injuries and fatalities due to MpB (and circumcision as a whole) heavily understate the dangers involved. Doctors can be highly motivated to deny to themselves how dangerous the procedure is by concealing the true cause of circumcision death or injury. They would prefer to attribute the results of what they fear is an unethical operation to secondary causes, such as infection or bleeding, while ignoring the primary cause, which is the circumcision that resulted in the infection or bleeding. It is, therefore, very hard to identify the total number of deaths and illness that occur from circumcision.

Simple understanding of hygiene tells you that MpB is as dangerous as it is disgusting, and if not for modern antibiotics the harm would be much more noticeable. It is not for nothing that the Brit service includes a prayer for protection of the baby. The gemarah discusses how many sons a particular father must lose (two or three) before the next child's circumcision can be delayed. It is likely that in Eastern Europe in the last century, circumcision was as much a killer as it is now in South Africa where hundreds of deaths are still reported each year. In the old Yishuv, infant mortality through poor hygiene was an astonishing 80% which leads me to suspect that but for his death in 1932, Reb Chaim Yosef Sonnenfeld would have been awarded the Iron Cross in person by Adolf Eichmann on his visit to Palestine in 1937.

It is not for those against MpB to show that it is dangerous. It is for those who wish to disprove modern ideas of the importance of hygeine to prove it is safe.

The Hareidim argument is similar to that regarding Shechita in which they argue that shechita without stunning is less painful to an animal when simple logic tells you that this cannot be. If you suggest that this theory be put to the test in abattoirs by installing video cameras and other equipment to test this claim for an extended period of time such as a year, the Hareidim will find any reason to refuse to agree to this.

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

As long as the frumma vote en bloc and give tons of money to NYC politicians, they can suck all the the penises they want.

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Deremes | September 10, 2012 at 02:48 PM

Ah, the paranoid slippery slope argument again. You probably aren't aware that the american academy of pediatrics strongly recommends circumcision They describe it as a minor procedure that is proven to help prevent infection and transmission of HIV.
So the likelihood that NYC will outright ban circumcision for that reason, along with religious freedom, is ZERO. You can't wrap your mind around the fact that direct contact of the mouth to an infant's open wound is extremely dangerous to the child. No matter what your Rabbis and comrades choose to say- they are wrong. It's that simple.

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Rebitzman | September 10, 2012 at 04:55 PM

You sound like a corporate spokesperson. Vioxx is still banned in some countries such as Australia. Many responsible and respected cardiologists and epidemiologists still consider Vioxx to engender significant risk of embolism and cardiac arrhythmia.

[jancsibacsi]

Deremes-You should change youre name to demented instead of deremes,the liberty that theese mindless rebbes take with a babies lifes is the biggest sin of them all,they know the babies have no right whatsoever so they do whatever pleases them it shows who they really are lowlife degenerates playing with other lifes playing god.

[Rebitzman]

@SkepticalYid

I don't live in Australia.

I DO have 2 siblings that rely on the drug to function - one of whom got out of a wheelchair after being prescribed it.

She knows the odds, and decided that she liked 99.9993% safe better than she liked being 100% crippled.

And if rationally analyzing the facts in lieu of name calling makes me sound like a corporate spokesman........ok, I can live with that.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

So I guess WSC will have to stop calling it the Hasidic Penis Sucking Ritual and instead call it simply the Orthodox Penis Sucking Ritual.

[Fleishike Kishke]

I think MBP should be known as BHIRPS (such as in you got to bhirps the baby. Bloody Haredi Infant Ritual Penis Sucking.

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Rebitzman | September 10, 2012 at 08:39 PM
99.9993% safe is a grossly inaccurate statement. Without first considering an individual's existing cardiac risk factors, it is impossible to consider that a valid probability outcome. And as I said earlier, a significant number of independent experts disagree with you. If it's essential for your relatives quality of life, col hakavod. But your science and math are way off base.

[Rebitzman]

99.9993% safe is a grossly inaccurate statement

I know, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt and took the most extreme number of 140,000 cases (estimate is between 60-140,000, and only 10,000 were confirmed) when I calculated. Probably should have thrown another 9 in there after the decimal before the 3.

I don't find the statement "a number if experts" without citing a study or " your math is way off" without a corrected formula to be overly compelling arguments. I also assue you, extensive testing was done on heart function - and ongoing testing for kidney and liver function is done on both sisters.

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

++Office of the Chief Rabbi | September 10, 2012 at 09:25 PM++

Perhaps at the next Failed Messiah Asifa, we can appoint a task force to come up with an official acronym.

Disclaimer: Failed Messiah is not affiliated with FailedMessiah.

[Number's dont lie]

Shmarya where are the numbers

Your readers deserve real numbers

What percentage of infants in the general population died or were permanent damaged due to herpes since 2004?

What percentage of infants in the general population were infected with herpes?

What percentage of infants that had MBP were infected... subtract the general risk factor and give us the end numbers.

Just reply to the above questions without adding undocumented cases, theory’s, or how many times greater the risk is. Just give your readers the numbers and let them decide if 0.0001 or even 0.0024 is a factor.

Posted by: Number's dont lie | September 10, 2012 at 01:05 PM

[Number's dont lie]

Posted by: Shmarya | September 10, 2012 at 01:08 PM

As soon as you answers with real numbers i will stop.

[Number's dont lie]

Posted by: Barry | September 10, 2012 at 05:31 PM

You might be right however it’s difficult to defend government intervention in a religious ritual due to unproven undocumented cases, assumptions or theory’s. Unless they can prove that doctors did in fact conceal true cause of circumcision deaths.

[Shmarya]

Posted by: Number's dont lie | September 11, 2012 at 11:51 AM

You think you're smart but you're not.

What you are is a fool.

You've had your 'questions' answered several times already on other posts.

But you are so ignorant of science, medicine and math, you don't understand them.

Were you born stupid?

I don't know.

But I do know that your haredi education has done nothing to remove you from the halakhic category of shoteh.