Doctor acknowledges his homosexuality

BELLE MEAD. N.J. (PA 49-year-old doctor and former New York City health official was praised by fellow physicians after acknowledging publicly yesterday that he has been a homosexual for 30 years.

Dr. Howard J. Brown received sustained applause when he finished addressing some 600 physicians. and several in the audience said such a public statement was long overdue.

Brown urged his fellow doctors at a symposium on human sexuality to help patients accept rather than conceal homosexuality. He said medicine should forget the idea that homosexuality can be treated by psychotherapy.

"it is important for the physicians to reject the idea that homosexuality is a treatable abnormality." he said. "There is very little indication that it can be treated."

Brown, a bachelor. served for 18 months as health services administrator in the administration of Mayor

John Lindsay. Now an asso-

ciate professor of clinical medicine at the New York University Medical School. Brown said he wished he had acknowledged his homosexuality years ago.

I wish now I had back the years to live more openly and freely.” he said.