Nothing — and I mean nothing — would have deterred my 19-year-old self from absolute trust in the system and its practices. Not even an informed consent form which clearly stated the risks involved.

In December of that year another infant was infected with herpes. Although the regulation was not in force, a lawyer for the city confirmed for the Forward that the December case was the only occasion in which a consent form had been collected.

Since then, four other infants have been infected. The two most recent cases were in July of this year.

Many ultra-Orthodox mohels refuse to comply with the regulation.

New York City authorities banned the mohel involved in the 2004 death, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, from performing the ritual, but the health department has not named the two recently-banned mohels.

In a recording made within the past two weeks and obtained by The Jewish Week, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer can be heard scheduling a bris with a caller who asks him to perform metzitzah b’peh.

When the city learned that Rabbi Fischer was not complying with the order, it ended up suing to compel him to do so, though the Bloomberg administration ultimately withdrew the suit. The city Health Department passed the matter on to a Jewish religious tribunal.

The state health department also issued a ban against Rabbi Fischer in 2005 but, according to reports, withdrew it in April of that year “after receiving a written assurance from a Hasidic business man, Jacob Spitzer, that the community was instituting its own self-policing procedures.” In 2006, an agreement between the state department of health, headed by Pataki appointee Antonina Novello, and a “broad array” of Orthodox rabbis resulted in what was called a “circumcision protocol regarding the prevention of neonatal herpes,”..

Last week, The Jewish Week learned that those protocols — which were widely criticized as ineffective by then-New York City health Commissioner Thomas Frieden and others — were rescinded the following year by Dr. Richard F. Daines, the late health commissioner under Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

At one point during the phone conversation, the caller asks to be reassured by Rabbi Fischer about metzitzah b’peh.

“It’s perfectly OK,” Rabbi Fischer answers

Calls to the Attorney General’s office were not returned.