NEW YORK: Metzitzah: City won't tell Jewish paper if mohelim are getting consent

The Jewish Daily Forward
April 24, 2014

New York City Stonewalls Forward on Metzitzah B'peh Circumcision Regulations

Babies Are Sickened - But City Won't Give Info
by Paul Berger
It’s been more than one year since New York City announced a new regulation to protect infants from contracting herpes during metzitzah b’peh, a controversial circumcision rite that many ultra-Orthodox mohels employ.

Since then, two babies in the city that were subjected to MBP, as the rite is known, have been infected with the herpes virus, and as the Forward reported in March, one of the city’s leading mohels continues to flout the law.

But the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has refused to respond to multiple requests from the Forward for basic information about how, or if, it is implementing its regulation.

The department’s regulation requires mohels to seek written parental consent before performing MBP, in which the mohel’s lips are placed on the infant’s penis to suction blood from the circumcision wound.

The city has not responded to questions that the Forward sent via email eight times between March 27 and April 22. Nor has the city responded to four phone messages left between April 9 and April 22.

In its queries, the Forward sought to learn what, if anything, the health department is doing to enforce its own rule after Rabbi Avrohom Cohn, a leading mohel, told the Forward that he refuses to comply with it.
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Cohn, who is chairman of the American Board of Ritual Circumcision, told the Forward in March that he performs MBP in the city on a regular basis.

But he said that he would never seek parental consent, because he believes it is an infringement of his religious liberties.

He called the claim that MBP poses a risk to infants a blood libel.

After publishing Cohn’s statement, the Forward asked the health department, “In light of Rabbi Cohn’s statements and actions, will the [health department] be taking action to try to prevent more cases of MBP-related herpes and/or to enforce its consent form rule?”

But the department will not respond.

Under the new regulation, mohels must keep signed copies of the forms for one year.

The health department has previously said that it has never sanctioned or fined a mohel for failing to comply with the consent form rule.

But the department will not say whether it has ever checked if mohels are complying with the rule. To do so, it would simply ask mohels who practice MBP for copies of signed forms they have collected.

The Forward filed a request in February, under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law, asking whether the health department had ever requested such forms and, if so, how many forms it had asked for. The Forward also wanted to see redacted copies of such forms.

The city responded by refusing to confirm or deny whether it had ever asked for such forms. The city added that if such forms did exist, because of privacy concerns they could not be released.

Before he became mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio blasted city agencies for failing to respond to Freedom of Information requests.

“We have to start holding government accountable when it refuses to turn over public records to citizens and taxpayers,” de Blasio said when he was public advocate, in April 2013.

The Forward appealed the city’s decision March 26.

Under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, the city was required to respond within 10 business days of receiving the appeal. It failed to do so, and more than 20 business days later has yet to respond.

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NEW YORK: Metzitzah: Scofflaw mohel will do it regardless

The Jewish Daily Forward
March 27, 2014

Rabbi Performs Controversial Metzitzah B'Peh Circumcision Rite - Law or No

by Paul Berger
After cutting off the infant’s foreskin, Rabbi Avrohom Cohn leaned down toward the baby boy who was cradled on a white pillow atop his grandfather’s knee.

Standing fully over the child, with his back to the dozens of immaculately dressed guests at the Syrian Jewish gathering in Brooklyn, it was impossible to see what Cohn did next.

Asked after the ceremony whether he performed the controversial rite metzitzah b’peh, also known as MBP, in which a ritual circumciser places his mouth on the baby’s genitals to suction blood from the circumcision wound, Cohn smiled and said, “I did what I had to do.”

If Cohn performed MBP without getting written consent from the infant’s parents, he broke the law.

It’s something he has done many times before.

For more than a year, ritual circumcisers, known as mohels, have been required to obtain written consent from parents before performing MBP.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene instituted the regulation in the fall of 2012 after a number of babies contracted herpes following MBP.

The department says that 14 infants have been infected in New York City since 2000. Two of those babies died, and at least two others suffered brain damage.

But Cohn, who performs MBP regularly, says he has never obtained consent from a parent, and he never will. “I don’t believe in it,” Cohn said of the consent form.

Cohn, 85, is no ordinary mohel — he is chairman of the American Board of Ritual Circumcision, and widely considered one of the top mohels in a very Jewish city.

In an earlier telephone conversation, Cohn told the Forward that MBP must be performed to fulfill the commandment of circumcision. He said that the only exception is if the rite puts an infant’s health at risk.

By this, Cohn did not mean the health of the infant in front of him at a bris. Cohn said the risk he feared was that the infant of a couple who are “not strictly observant” might transmit a disease to him via MBP — and that he could then transmit that disease to another infant.

“They could be drug users, they could be going to prostitutes and who knows what, and are infected with all kinds of diseases,” Cohn said, referring to nonobservant parents.
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When a reporter from the Forward called the infant’s father after the circumcision, the father said that he was aware of the risks of MBP and that he had instructed Cohn not to perform it. “I didn’t allow him to do that,” the father said.

So what did Cohn actually do when he “did what I had to do”? Confronted with the father’s testimony, Cohn said that he had not, after all, performed MBP. But the reason, he said, had nothing to do with the father’s request; it was because the father did not seem observant enough. “That young man is out to have a good time,” Cohn said. “I don’t think he’s so careful who he has a good time with.”

This was not the only time that Cohn followed his own rules regarding MBP, at times even contradicting the expressed wishes of the parents.

Shortly before the Syrian circumcision ceremony began in Brooklyn, one guest remarked to another that he was at a circumcision recently where Cohn was asked not to perform MBP, but the rabbi refused to comply.
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Meanwhile, the health department has issued two warnings since January 2013, related to two infants being infected with herpes following MBP.

Despite the two recent cases, the city has never sanctioned or warned a mohel for failing to comply with the consent form regulation.

Mohels are required to keep a copy of the signed forms for one year. But the city will not say whether it has ever enforced the law by asking a mohel to provide a signed copy of such forms.

The Forward recently filed a freedom of information request asking the health department whether it had ever requested signed forms from a mohel. The request also asked for copies of any such forms submitted with the names of family members redacted.

The health department denied both parts of the request. ...

But Cohn said that the city’s claims that MBP causes herpes are a “blood libel” and that he will never obtain written consent before performing MBP.
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“Now I am here in America all these years, and I am terribly disappointed religion is being interfered with,” he said. “If they want me to go to jail, I will go to jail.”

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NEW YORK: Metzitzah: Another baby gets herpes

Vos Iz Neias
January 29, 2014

New York, NY - NYC Health Dept. Issues "Alert" To Medical Community After New Case Of Neonatal Herpes From MBP

by Glen Silver
New York, NY - The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has issued an “alert” to the city’s medical community following a January 2014 case of neonatal herpes following the Jewish circumcision ritual metzitzah b’peh, or MBP.

According to the document, the newborn was the product of a full term pregnancy and underwent the MBP ritual on his 8th day of life, after which a doctor conducting a routine check-up the following week noticed a rash on the child.

After a series of unsuccessful treatments, HSV-1 (herpes simplex virus, type 1) was suspected and specimens were collected and sent off to the New York State Wadsworth Center Laboratories.

The child was hospitalized for treatment after the diagnosis of HSV-1 was confirmed.

According to the release it is the 14th laboratory-confirmed case of MBP-related HSV-1 on record at the Health Dept. since 2000, two of which resulted in death—-while yet another two young boys suffered brain damage.

The issue of MBP has continued to be a hot-button topic for New Yorkers, more specifically New York’s Jewish community after former-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s implementation of parental consent forms sparked outrage.

At a January 16 news conference, new Mayor Bill de Blasio doubled down on his campaign promise to work with Jewish community members and religious leaders to actively seek an alternative to the consent forms, but said that for the time being they will remain in place.

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NEW YORK: Metzitzah Orthodox Groups Distorted Our Report - Researchers

The Jewish Daily Forward
April 15, 2013

U. Penn Researchers: Orthodox Groups Distorted Our Report on Circumcision Rite

Authors Reject Efforts To Debunk Risk of Metzitzah B'Peh

bySeth Berkman

The authors of a research report on metzitzah b’peh say their study is being distorted by defenders of the controversial ritual circumcision practice who claim that the procedure poses no risk of neonatal herpes to infants.

In an April 9 press release headlined “Ivy League Study Casts Doubt on Claims that Jewish Tradition Leads to Herpes in Infants,” a public relations agency representing Agudath Israel of America and several other ultra-Orthodox groups sought to debunk the public health consensus on metzitzah b’peh, or MBP. The press announcement claimed that a study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania “found little evidence to support the claim that circumcision ritual is infecting infants” with herpes simplex virus.

The announcement noted that the UPenn study was submitted as evidence in an appeal filed by the ultra-Orthodox groups, who are plaintiffs in a suit opposing regulation of the practice by New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

“We have been saying for years that the evidence attacking this religious practice is highly dubious, and now we have world class doctors agreeing with us.” Rabbi Gedaliah Weinberger, chairman emeritus of the Aguda’s board of trustees, said in the press release.

But in a statement released Monday, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Evidence-based Practice termed it “regrettable that our evidence review was manipulated for purposes other than advising physicians of important clinical risk factors for newborns.”

“The unpublished report was used without our knowledge or consent and importantly, without proper context,” the center’s statement said. “Further, a subsequent press release mischaracterized our review by implying that there is no causal relationship between circumcision performed with oral suction and the transmission of neonatal herpes simplex virus (HSV) when the full report on the existing evidence concluded this link does exist.”

MBP, a procedure practiced by some ultra-Orthodox mohels, involves a mohel orally sucking away the blood from the infant’s genital area after cutting off his foreskin during the bris, or ritual circumcision. The practice can infect newborns with herpes simplex virus type 1, according to medical authorities. While not serious for adults, neonatal herpes can be fatal for infants, or cause permanent cognitive or physical damage. A study published in a journal sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control found that infants definitely or likely to have been exposed to MBP during circumcision faced a risk of neonatal herpes 3.4 times greater than that of newborns outside this group.

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The UPenn study was submitted by the Aguda, the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, and the International Bris Association in their most recent court brief filed in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on April 8. Their suit challenges a New York City regulation requiring a mohel to obtain a signed consent form from the parents of a newborn before performing direct MBP on the infant as part of a ritual circumcision.

In an April 10 email to the Forward, Joel Betesh, the project director of the study cited by the plaintiffs, wrote, “I do not agree with the way they are portraying our report.” Betesh requested to speak with a Forward reporter the following day. But all future communication involved a UPenn press spokesperson. Betesh and Brian Leas, the lead analyst of the study, have not returned further requests for an interview.

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The plaintiffs’ public relations agency, Sheinkopf Ltd — headed by the prominent Democratic Party political consultant Hank Scheinkopf — provided the Forward with a full copy of the study on request on April 9, despite the fact that it had not appeared elsewhere. But in a separate statement, first published April 12 on the website Failed Messiah, a representative from UPenn said that the study was not peer reviewed and “was an internal literature review.” The spokesperson reiterated this in an interview with the Forward April 15. “The request was internal only with no connection to any outside group,” said Susan Phillips, senior vice president for public affairs at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

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Earlier story

NEW YORK: Metzitah Are hospitals hiding herpes?

The Daily Forward
April 1, 2013

Are New York Hospitals Hiding Herpes From Metzitzah B'Peh Circumcision Rite?

Refuse To Respond to Claims Made by Yeshiva U. Rabbi

bySeth Berkman

Are some New York City hospitals and the city’s Department of Health suppressing disclosure of cases in which a dangerous herpes virus is being transmitted by mohels to newborns?

Representatives from New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center refused to respond to this allegation — made specifically about their own hospital — by a senior rabbinic authority at Yeshiva University recently. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also declined to respond to the charge despite multiple requests.

As his source for the allegation, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, the influential YU rabbinical leader who made the charge publicly, cited his own daughter who, he said, works as a nurse at New York Presbyterian.

In a public lecture last February in London, Schachter, who is a rosh yeshiva, or senior chief rabbinic authority, at Y.U.’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, claimed that his daughter’s hospital treated three cases per year of Hasidic babies infected with herpes. The infections were “obviously because of metzitzah b’peh,” Schachter told his audience. The remarks were first posted March 14 on the website Failed Messiah.

The Hebrew term metzitzah b’peh, often shortened to MBP, refers to a procedure practiced by some ultra-Orthodox mohels as part of a male infant’s circumcision rite in which the mohel orally sucks the blood away from the infant’s genital area after cutting away his foreskin. The practice can infect newborns with Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1, according to medical authorities, a virus that, while not serious for adults, can be fatal for infants, or cause permanent cognitive or physical harm.

Since 2004, the New York City Department Of Health And Mental Hygiene has reported 12 cases, with two deaths. Schachter cited his daughter as claiming that there are, in fact, about 15 such cases per year in the city, including the three cases or so she claimed per year at her own hospital.

Schachter said his daughter explained that the hospitals do not report these cases because Hasidic clients would not return if they were made public.

Mohels from outside the ultra-Orthodox community use a sterile pipette for this purpose. But many ultra-Orthodox mohels consider direct suction of the genital area by mouth to be mandated by the Talmud as part of the religious rite.

In contrast to New York Presbyterian and the New York City Department of Health, Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, which has perhaps the largest clientele of Orthodox patients in the city, strongly denied Schachter’s allegation.

Eileen Tynion, assistant vice president, public relations for Maimonides, wrote in an email that, “Like all hospitals, Maimonides is required to report cases of infant herpes to the DOH, and we remain in compliance at all times with that requirement.” In September 2011, a two-week old boy died at Maimonides after contracting herpes following MBP, according to the city medical examiner.

Efforts to reach Schachter and his daughter were unsuccessful.

The ultra-Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America, which has filed a lawsuit against the city’s effort to regulate MBP, also declined to comment on Schachter’s allegations.

Schachter’s remarks on the issue were part of a broader talk he gave to an audience of British rabbis that has sparked intense controversy. During the lecture, Schachter also said that allegations of child sexual abuse within the Orthodox community should not be directly reported to law enforcement authorities; instead, he said, they should first be brought before a special panel of Torah scholars who are also psychologists to determine their validity. He voiced caution about sending cases to law authorities because such action could result in a Jew being sent to a state prison, where he could be locked up “with a shvartze, in a cell with a Muslim, a black Muslim who wants to kill all the Jews."

[So he can hardly be accused of being motivated by antisemitism. How similar are his and the Roman Catholic Church's approches to child abuse by their members!]

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