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Circumcision doctor cleared after complaint over Orthodox Jewish practice of sucking blood from from a baby's penis

A Toronto doctor who employs the traditional Jewish practice of orally sucking blood from a baby’s penis following circumcision has been cleared by Ontario’s physician review board after an anti-circumcision activist filed an official complaint accusing him of religious bias and “sexual motive.”

The ritual of orally suctioning blood from a circumcision wound, sometimes through a plastic tube, is known as metzitzah b’peh and is practised almost exclusively among Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish circles.

Metzitzah b’peh has become the subject of heightened controversy in recent years after it was linked to numerous cases of herpes infection in New York City.

According to New York City health officials, the ritual practice infected 11 boys with neonatal herpes between 2004 and 2011, with fatal implications for two of them.

Within four months, the article caught the eye of a complainant identified only as “D.S.” In a letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, he alleged that Dr. Jesin was no longer fit to practise medicine “due to personal bias surrounding his religious beliefs.”

The letter added “although it might be presumptive for me to say so, I will say to you that given the nature of this breach, one cannot rule out sexual motive.”

In follow-up letters, D.S. would go even further, calling for a full-scale inquiry into Ontario’s “ritual amputation activities,” and claiming that the practice was counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A further submission by D.S.’s lawyer claimed that no certified medical doctor should be allowed to engage in the “unnecessary amputation of healthy genital tissue from a child who cannot consent to the procedure itself, let alone consent to a sub-standard version.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07...-circumcision/