Board of Health Will Vote On Mayor’s Plan To Scrap Informed Consent For Dangerous Haredi Circumcision Practice

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com



New York City's Board of Health has now voted to consider a plan proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio that would scrap the city’s informed consent requirement for metzitzah b’peh (MBP), the dangerous direct mouth-to-bleeding-penis suction performed, predominantly by haredi mohels, after first cutting off the baby’s foreskin.



MBP is not a direct part of the circumcision mitzvah (divine commandment) Orthodox and haredi Jews believe was given by God to the Jewish people to stand as a sign of his covenant with them.



Instead, MBP is an ancient health measure instituted at time two millennia ago when medicine believed the body had four humors – black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood – and that stagnation of any of them created an imbalance in the body that caused illness.



Ancient physicians thought sucking blood from open wounds caused the blood to move from the furthest reaches of the body and not stagnate, and rabbis instituted the direct oral suction circa 175 CE because of that.



However, the theory of the four bodily humors has long since been discredited, and modern science and medicine has shown germs, viruses and bacteria, cause the illnesses the ancients attributed to “humor imbalance” or “humor stagnation.”



Direct oral suction on neonates is especially dangerous because their immune systems are underdeveloped, and MBP has been shown to transmit all sorts of STDs to infants.



In the 19th century, epidemics of MBP-transmitted syphilis, herpes and others illnesses killed and maimed hundreds if not thousands of Jewish babies, as even rabbinical literature shows, and many Orthodox and non-Orthodox rabbis – including some of the top rabbis of the Lithuanian yeshiva community – banned MBP as a result.



But some more extreme haredi rabbis and almost all hasidic rabbis refused to take that step, claiming that because “reformers” in the Jewish community and in governments were attempting to regulate or stop “bris milah” (the mitzvah of circumcision), it was Jews’ duty to have MBP done on their infant sons no matter what doctors or the government said about its dangers. Almost 200 years later, the same argument is being used by haredi and hasidic rabbis in New York State to fight New York City’s informed consent requirement.



Even with modern anti-viral medication, life support and other very advanced medical interventions, Jewish babies have died, been maimed, and suffered serious permanent brain damage due to Herpes Simplex Virus-1 (HSV-1) transmitted by MBP and, once contracted, HSV-1 remains in the body for life and can be transmitted to others.



Two recent peer reviewed studies found that having HSV-1 doubles a person’s risk of having Alzheimer’s Disease later in life and researchers have speculated that a relatively recent spike in haredi children with learning disabilities may in part be caused by subclinical HSV-1 infections contracted through MBP’s direct oral suction.



Now de Blasio wants to scrap the city’s informed consent requirement and replace it with a voluntary scheme almost identical to one haredim agreed to follow a decade ago but didn’t.



Since 2000, at least HSV-1 was transmitted to at least infants in the city through MBP.



But de Blasio’s handpicked Health Commissioner, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, insists the informed consent requirement, passed by the Bloomberg Administration less than three years ago after haredim welched on the voluntary deal reached with the city a decade ago, is polarizing and too difficult to implement.



The health board, which has recently been bolstered with several handpicked de Blasio supporters, will reportedly hold a public comment period before going to a vote.



In 2013 only hours before the election, then-candidate de Blasio promised the Satmar hasidic movement’s Aaron faction that he would scrap the informed consent requirement on election in return for the faction’s bloc vote.



De Blasio now denies he made that promise even though the video documenting the incident exists and can be viewed here.

Related Posts:

Haredi Leaders Admit Herpes Testing Doesn't Work, Want To Continue Dangerous Circumcision Practice Anyway.

Why Do Haredim Insist On Doing MBP?

A Bulletpoint History Of MBP Disease Transmission.

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Sprecher's Devastating Medical History Of MBP.

A Graphic Halakhic History Of MBP.

Herpes Doubles Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease, Studies Show.

Candidate Bill De Blasio Promises Satmar That In Exchange For Votes, He Will Repeal Informed Consent For Dangerous Haredi Circumcision Practice.

Endangering Children's Lives To Appease Powerful Haredi Bloc Vote Attacked By NY Times and NY Daily News, But Endorsed By NY Post.

All MBP Posts.