New York City is urging Jewish parents to stop letting mohels suck blood from circumcision wounds. The sucking, which is supposed to clean the wound, reportedly happens 2,000 to 4,000 times a year in the city. The city acted after several sucked boys got herpes infections, one of which led to brain damage. Some Orthodox Jews hold the practice sacred and accuse the city of violating religious freedom. Others say it's about time the city did something to protect kids from zealots. The city says a ban would be unenforceable and beyond government's authority, and education is the next best thing.

The New York Times reported in August that three boys had contracted herpes, and one had died.

Doing a quick search, I find that indeed this has recently been written up, in a series of eight babies who contracted herpes after ritual circumsion.

Historically, Jewish ritual circumcision consists of 3 parts: 1) the excision of the outer part of the prepuce (milah), 2) slitting of the foreskin's inner lining to facilitate the total uncovering of the glans (peri'ah), and 3) the sucking of the blood from the wound. Formerly, the mohel took some wine in his mouth and applied his lips to the part involved in the operation and exerted suction, after which he expelled the mixture of wine and blood into a receptacle provided for this purpose; this procedure was repeated several times until bleeding stopped (metzitzah). The first 2 parts are the act of circumcision, whereas the removal of the blood was done for medical reasons of wound care. However, the ancient procedure of metzitzah also carries a risk of infection, and currently most mohels use an appropriate suction device, such as a mucus extractor.

In the 19th century, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865) established the principles of hygiene and disease transmission, after neonatal tuberculosis was documented after circumcision by an infected mohel.16 Since then, most rabbinical authorities modified their approach in response to these findings. Because the Talmudic injunction to perform metzitzah did not explicitly stipulate oral suction, >160 years ago, Rabbi Moses Schreiber (Pressburg, 1762-1839), a leading rabbinical authority, ruled that metzitzah could be conducted by instrumental suction,16 a ruling quickly adopted by most rabbinical authorities. Consequently, the great majority of ritual circumcisions are performed today with a sterile device and not by oral suction by the mohel.

Herpes in the newborn period is a horrible disease with a high rate of death or lifelong disability/handicap, and that is just one of the many problems that could result from this practice. Best case, it involves weeks of intravenous therapy and close followup. There is no practical way to insure that the moel is not excreting herpes in his saliva at any one moment. No medications or preparations can prevent innoculation if this practice is followed. Evidently the practice is known to be dangerous and is no longer performed by most mohels:

All I can say to those who allow this to happen to their boys: good luck with all that, but don't think that you are beyond the reach of society. This is, imho, an abuse arguably worse than the more publicized instances of families who did not take their child to a doctor with a severe illness, and thereby run afoul of the authorities. In the circ/suck situation, the illness is CAUSED by the intentional act. 80% of adults have intermittent labial herpes (cold sores) and the shedding of virus is unpredictable.

don't want to offend, but this offends me.