THIS TRAGIC STORY has been getting some media attention:

After infant's death from herpes, scrutiny turns to circumcision rite
By JTA

The death of one infant boy from herpes and the infection of two others has focused attention on an ancient practice that is still used in some fervently Orthodox communities as they circumcise babies.

New York City health officials are investigating whether the mohel who operated on the three boys had infected them. The city's legal department has been granted a temporary restraining order against Rabbi Yitzhak Fischer until the investigation is complete.

Fischer practices a custom called metzitzah b'peh � loosely translated as oral suction � that is considered an integral part of the brit milah in parts of the Jewish world, though it is met with shock and distaste in others. It's not known if Fischer carries the herpes virus, but the restraining order forbids him from practicing metzitzah b'peh, and demands that he wear surgical gloves when he performs a circumcision.

[...]

The article goes on to discuss the Talmudic rules for the practice and the response by present-day physicians in the medical journal Pediatrics. Curiously, this Jerusalem Post article, like all the others I've seen, doesn't give the specific reference in the Talmud. One of the authors of the Pediatrics article, biologist Rabbi Moses Tendler of Yeshiva University, sums up as follows:

"Metzitzah is strictly medieval medicine, and it should have given way to modern medicine. "We have a tradition that says that when it comes to medicine, you don't look into the Talmud. You seek the most competent physician to tell you what to do."

UPDATE: Reader Dan Rabinowitz e-mails:

The Talmud passage appears in the Tractate Shabbat first on page 133A in the Mishna and then on page 133,B here is the full quote of the Talmudic passage in English

"Sucking out the blood." R. Papa said: "The circumciser who does not suck out the wound places the child in danger, and should be discharged from office." Is this not self-evident? It certainly must be dangerous not to do this, or the Sabbath would not be violated in order to perform that duty! We might assume, that the blood having already come to the surface it would run out of itself, and hence by sucking it out the Sabbath is not violated; hence we are given to understand that this is not so: the blood is moved only by the suction, and the Sabbath is violated; but failure to do this would involve danger for the child and hence it is permitted, and is regarded the same as applying a plaster or caraway seeds (mentioned further on in the Mishna), the omission of which would also involve danger to the child.