Suit Claims Dental Chain Turned Away 4 With AIDS Virus : Health: The head of the clinics denies the charges. Attorneys say there may be more such actions in bias cases.

A chain of California dental clinics that allegedly refused to treat four men infected with the AIDS virus was sued Thursday in what is being portrayed as a new effort to crack down on AIDS discrimination by health care providers.

Attorneys in the lawsuit against Western Dental Services Inc.--which widely advertises as Dr. Beauchamp, the Credit Dentist--said it may be the first of several suits targeting dentists who practice such bias.

In a press conference at AIDS Project Los Angeles headquarters in Hollywood, a coalition of activists and legal groups were joined by representatives of the California Dental Assn., which condemned such discrimination, and by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, which announced plans to seek fines and injunctions to halt further alleged discrimination.

John Emerson, a chief deputy to City Atty. James K. Hahn, said the litigation “is not only a legal battle, but a moral battle as well.”

But the president of Western Dental Services, which operates 39 clinics in Southern California, said a preliminary investigation has not found any of the charges to be valid.

“To my knowledge, we have never failed to provide service to an HIV patient. If such care were ever denied, appropriate disciplinary action would be taken immediately, which could include termination,” said Frank Pellkofer, Western’s president. (Dr. Robert F. Beauchamp, who sold his eight clinics to Western in 1986, is not associated with the firm, although it retains the commercial use of his name.)

In addition to Western Dental Services, the suit lists Dr. Grace Cho and Dr. Emmanuel K. Akoto-Amanfu as defendants.

Akoto-Amanfu “doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” Pellkofer said. Cho left the firm last July, he said.

The lawsuit marks the first time that a health care provider has been sued under a 1985 Los Angeles ordinance that affords broad civil rights protections to people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A similar suit was previously filed in San Francisco, said Deputy City Atty. David Schulman.

Within the legal arena of AIDS, the suit is unprecedented in the number of patients seeking damages and in the alliance of institutional plaintiffs, lawyers said. In addition to the four individuals, AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center are also listed as plaintiffs on behalf of their clients.

The legal team includes private attorneys retained by the patients, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Western Law Center for the Handicapped, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.

The suit alleges that Teddy Page, Phil Lawrence, John Huntington and Eric Ewing were denied treatment on separate occasions at Western Dental offices in Hollywood after they told the clinic staff that they were infected with HIV.

“I left that office in tears and in incredible agony,” said Page, who sought treatment for an abscessed tooth. The delay from the clinic’s action led to an infection that lasted two months, Page said.

“I was honest about my HIV status and look what happened to me,” he added. “If people are refused care when they disclose their HIV status to their doctor or dentist, they will stop telling.”

Lawrence said he went to the clinic with a bad toothache. But when a receptionist read his form, he said, she loudly declared in front of several other clients, “You’re HIV-positive.”

Other clinic workers gathered by her desk “looking at me like I was a freak,” Lawrence said. After he was refused treatment, Lawrence said, “I left that office in great pain and feeling like a dog with his tail between his legs.”

Pellkofer said Page’s claims were particularly puzzling because Western’s records show that, since October, 1990, Page had had fillings and crown work done at the Hollywood clinic.

Katie Wohn, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the suit is necessary “to challenge the rising tide of discrimination against HIV-infected individuals by health care providers.”