Valentine Birds

A North Hollywood physician who injected AIDS patients with a homemade chemical of no proven value has had his medical license revoked, the first such action against a California doctor accused of AIDS quackery. Administrative Law Judge M.

The Medical Center of North Hollywood knew a doctor was treating patients in its AIDS ward with useless Vitamin C injections but did nothing to stop him, according to new papers filed in a lawsuit by nine AIDS sufferers. The patients sued the hospital, the doctor and several others last year, saying they participated in an "unethical experiment" on the patients using an illegal AIDS potion.

Climaxing the first AIDS medical fraud case to come to trial in the United States, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury ordered North Hollywood Medical Center on Friday to pay $1.8 million in punitive damages for allowing an "unethical medical experiment" on five patients. The decision brought total damages to $2.

A North Hollywood physician who injected AIDS patients with a homemade chemical of no proven value has had his medical license revoked, the first such action against a California doctor accused of AIDS quackery. Administrative law judge M.

A Los Angeles court case involving a discredited AIDS drug has taken an unusual turn, with a man who took the potion recanting an earlier story that he was injured by it and charging that his lawyer coached him to lie.

For about eight years, the Electro-Acuscope, a device the size of a large briefcase that emits a low-level electrical current, has been quietly used by physical therapists, acupuncturists, MDs and other health professionals largely to treat pain and athletic injuries. But recently, L.A.

Helen MacEachron lay on her bed, blinking back tears as she made another entry in her videotaped diary. With her camcorder whirring, she talked quietly about trying a new drug, Viroxan, that she hoped would stop the lymph cancer that was slowly killing her. "This experimental treatment is a godsend," said MacEachron, a former legal secretary and aspiring writer in Santa Monica. "If this doesn't get any better--this is just a nightmare, you know?" But things quickly went wrong with Viroxan.

The Medical Board of California licenses physicians and other medical professionals. It also investigates medical complaints and issues disciplinary actions. These are the Los Angeles County medical professionals subject to serious disciplinary actions between May 15, 1991, and Jan . 31, 1992, according to medical board documents. Final actions are published only after all appeals are exhausted. Doctors Valentine G. Birds, M.D., North Hollywood.

By the time a friend finally found him, Mark Snider had lain helpless in his bathtub for three days. Naked and in shock, he was in the fetal position, his body racked by blood poisoning, pneumonia and severe staph infection. Snider, a Beverly Hills floral designer with AIDS, recently had begun taking an underground AIDS drug called Viroxan. Four days after he was discovered in the tub, he was dead.