State Bid to Stop Hormone Clinic Denied : Medicine: An El Toro physician charges “witch hunt,” but state says he prescribes massive doses of hormones for almost any ailment.

State medical authorities tried unsuccessfully Tuesday to obtain a court order barring an El Toro physician from administering a hormonal treatment that, they allege, poses a public danger because at least six women have suffered harmful side effects.

In addition, the Board of Medical Quality Assurance (BMQA) on Tuesday filed a 25-page accusation against the doctor, Norman King Beals Jr., recommending that his medical license be revoked for “negligence, incompetence and . . . a pattern of dishonest and/or corrupt acts,” in connection with his advertising and dispensation of hormone drugs.

Beals, 55, who is host for a call-in radio talk show and advertises heavily in newspapers, denied wrongdoing. On Tuesday, he accused the state of orchestrating a “witch hunt” against him because his hormonal treatment program is not recognized by the U.S. medical establishment.

“It’s really the American medical system going against women’s rights” to have hormonal treatment, Beals said from South Carolina, where he was on business. “This does not follow the main line of the American system.”

BMQA investigators allege that Beals prescribes massive doses of hormones for almost any ailment. Board officials said no scientific evidence exists to support Beals’ contention that injection of the female hormones progesterone and estrogen can reduce the odds of developing breast cancer and eliminate menopausal hot flashes, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and heart disease.

Beals, a 30-year practitioner of medicine, had his license placed on a year’s probation in 1975 by the BMQA for allegedly employing unlicensed personnel in the practice of medicine.

Beals on Tuesday called that suspension a similar “witch hunt.”

Representatives of the state attorney general’s office appeared in Orange County Superior Court on BMQA’s behalf Tuesday, seeking a restraining order against Beals to bar him from practicing medicine until there is an administrative hearing on the doctor’s license.

Such action against a practicing physician is rare in California, having happened just once previously in Orange County in recent years, state officials said.

Superior Court Commissioner Ronald L. Bauer denied the request, refusing even to hear the state’s case, and rescheduled the matter for a Dec. 29 hearing. Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Fitzgerald said she plans to repeat her request for a restraining order at that hearing.

The BMQA complaint named six female patients who were allegedly mistreated by Beals and suffered harmful side effects--including rashes, vomiting and even hepa titis--in the last two years.

The women were among 1,600 mostly female patients the doctor said he treats annually at his Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)-Women’s Health Care Center in El Toro.

The most serious alleged side effect from the hormonal treatment involved patient Gail Halpern of Fountain Valley, who had gone to Beals’ clinic in May for hysterectomy-related mood swings, the BMQA accusation said. After five months of treatment, Halpern developed hepatitis from the effect of an overabundance of hormones on her liver, the BMQA accusation said.

During treatment, Halpern alleged, Beals’ office refused to see her about complaints that she felt very ill, was vomiting and had developed a chronic rash--until she agreed to submit larger payments on an outstanding $710 bill for previous blood tests.

Another patient, Linda Welch, 40, of Corona, said in affidavits filed in court that she suffered severe cramping, swollen and tender breasts and worsening PMS symptoms after six visits to Beals’ office during 1987 for treatment of PMS.

According to her affidavit, Welch said she canceled a seventh scheduled visit because “by this time I was so miserable I felt like crying all the time.”

A third patient, Blanche Mickelson, 57, of Laguna Niguel, said in an affidavit that she suffered severe shakes, chills, nausea and “heart pounding” after undergoing hormonal injections at Beals’ clinic for treatment in June and July, 1988 after a hysterectomy.

“I think someone should check into his unethical practice,” Mickelson wrote in a subsequent complaint to the American Medical Assn. “A person can die from the reaction I had to the medication.”

Beals discounted the allegations, saying the six women were upset with him because his office is pursuing them for nonpayment of medical bills.

Beals said the women represent “about one-half” of all the patients who have complained to him since he opened his El Toro clinic three years ago.

Beals, a frequent lecturer in Orange County, has written a book, “Stay Young, Healthy and Beautiful with HRT.”

Kathleen Schmidt, a senior BMQA investigator in Santa Ana, said the board’s investigation of Beals began about a year and a half ago after three of the women filed complaints.

Schmidt said the inquiry intensified this year when the other three women came forward.

“This showed us that this was not an isolated problem,” Schmidt said, “but that it has been an ongoing, serious problem. We feel this is a much more far-reaching problem than we’re aware of.”

Schmidt added that Beals’ case remains under investigation; she encouraged any other patients to contact her office.

As part of the investigation, Schmidt last month dispatched fellow BMQA senior investigator Larry Blochl to tape-record one of Beals’ monthly lectures in El Toro. The lecture to about 40 people, mostly women, was riddled with inaccuracies and misleading statements, according to an analysis of the tape by two BMQA medical consultants.

One inaccuracy, the consultants alleged, was that 80% of the women who die in the United States each year from breast cancer could be saved by hormone injections.

Beals stood by that statement Tuesday, saying he has seen studies showing it to be true.