The city’s health department said an investigation into the latest case has begun and city officials plan to speak to the family later Wednesday. | GETTY | Getty Images City reports case of neonatal herpes related to controversial circumcision ritual

The city’s health department reported the year’s first case of neonatal herpes believed to be caused by metzitzah b’peh, the controversial circumcision ritual that involves orally sucking blood away from the wound.

This is the first time the health department has alerted the public to a case of neonatal herpes since 2015, when the city’s Board of Health repealed a Bloomberg-era requirement that parents sign a consent form alerting them to the dangers of placing an adult mouth on an infant’s open wound.


The consent forms were deemed ineffective by the de Blasio administration and were replaced with an educational pamphlet . In 2015, there were three cases of neonatal herpes after metzitzah b’peh was performed. In 2016, there were two more cases, according to the health department, but no public alerts were sent.

As part of the deal to end the consent forms, the de Blasio administration said in 2015 that a mohel would voluntarily be tested for herpes if a baby contracted the virus, and if the mohel's strain matched the baby’s, the mohel would be banned from performing circumcision for life.

The city’s health department said an investigation into the latest case has begun and city officials plan to speak to the family later Wednesday.

Asked about the new case during an unrelated press conference Wednesday, de Blasio said the investigation is ongoing but the city expects "full cooperation" from the mohel in the process.

A spokesman from the health department would not say whether the mohels connected to the 2016 cases were tested, and said the department did not send out alerts in 2016 because there had been so much attention given to the issue that providers were already aware of the disease.

City health commissioner Mary Bassett touted the educational pamphlets as a more effective way to reach the city's ultra-Orthodox community that practices the circumcision ritual, which many rabbis agree is unsafe and unnecessary.

Hospitals were supposed to distribute the pamphlets to pregnant women and display posters in prenatal and labor and delivery areas. But the parents of the 2016 patients said they did not see the pamphlets or posters, according to the health department.

Since 2000, there have been 24 cases of neonatal herpes following metzitzah b’peh. Of those, two babies have died and at least two more have suffered brain damage.

The consent forms incensed many in the Orthodox community, who felt they violated their religious freedom. Members of the community also disputed the connection between putting one's mouth on an open wound and neonatal herpes. The community refused to follow the board's rules and the health department never determined a way to enforce its own policy.

The issue flared up in 2013 as several mayoral candidates vied for the support of the city's Satmar community in a contested Democratic primary. Just days before the primary, de Blasio was in Brooklyn for a rally where he was endorsed by Moishe Indig, an Aroni Satmar leader, who praised de Blasio for promising to end the consent forms. De Blasio never explicitly promised to do so during the campaign, but did not publicly refute the claim at the time either. The mayor's office now denies such a promise was ever made.

Indig is now the subject of a federal probe into the mayor’s fundraising, according to The New York Times.

Laura Nahmias contributed to this report.