Villa Park Doctor Charged With Distributing Unproven AIDS Drug : Medicine: Physician faces 16 felony counts. He says his prosecution is the product of ‘mindless innuendoes and attacks.’

In the first case of its kind in the state, an Orange County physician has been charged with 16 felony counts of distributing an unproven drug he claims is a breakthrough treatment for AIDS.

Dr. Stephen David Herman, 54, who was arrested by state authorities in January, 1990, but not charged until Wednesday, denounced the charges Thursday as “mindless innuendoes and attacks” by city and state officials.

Herman was arrested after a patient, Mark Snider, a floral designer from Los Angeles, died of blood poisoning on Nov. 12, 1989, two weeks after being injected with Herman’s drug.

Three other AIDS patients have died since being treated by Herman, officials said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Connie Johnson, who filed the charges, said prosecutors had contemplated filing manslaughter charges but determined that there was not enough evidence that the drug caused the deaths.

Instead, they charged Herman with falsely advertising, selling and misrepresenting the drug Viroxan, which Herman said he developed. Health officials said Viroxan, a liquid that is injected intravenously or into the muscles, is not approved by any government agency.

This marks the first time a doctor has been charged with improperly developing and administering an AIDS treatment in the state, according to officials with the state Department of Health Services.

In an interview at his Villa Park home, Herman labeled the charges “an absurdity.”

“They are purely minor harassment, and the issues involved are far above the charges,” he said.

Said Johnson: “He can say whatever he wants to say. We have enough evidence to bring him to trial.”

Ozzie Schmidt, district supervisor of the state Department of Health Services, said he was disappointed that the manslaughter charge was not brought against Herman.

Kathy Schmidt (no relation to Ozzie Schmidt), a senior investigator with the Medical Board of California, said Herman manufactured the treatment for acquired immune deficiency syndrome in the kitchen of a guest house behind his home.

Even though Herman never claimed that his drug was a cure for AIDS, his actions still violated federal Food and Drug Administration regulations, she said.

“He experimented on people before he sought any laboratory (tests),” she said. “Not only is (the drug) not FDA-approved, it’s unproved, unapproved and potentially dangerous.”

Herman said he bypassed the FDA because he believed that the testing period in the United States for a new drug is too long. Despite the charges against him, Herman said he still conducts clinical trials of the drug abroad.

“Viroxan has been openly understood and accepted by the medical community outside the United States,” said Herman, who has been treating himself with the drug for lymphoma, a form of cancer.