creating multiple usercontrols in a loop

Hi All: I have a userControl with with two DDLs and two RBLs, and public properties to get/set the values. If I register the UC on a page it works fine....I can set/retrieve the values without a problem.
I need to create multiple UCs based on records I'm pulling from a dB, so I'm trying to instead create the UCs programmatically. I'm testing this by adding a reference to the control ("symptomBasic"), creating a placeholder ("ph1") on a page and then trying to populate it with the UCs in PageInit. (the parent page uses a master page)
Partial Class testUC
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
    Private myUC As ASP.symptomBasic
    Protected Sub Page_init(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Init
        Dim i As Integer
        For i = 1 To 3
         &nb ...