Doctor cleared in parents’ suit over treatment of diaper rash

EUGENE, Ore. – A jury has sided with an Oregon doctor, clearing him of any wrongdoing for prescribing a steroid cream to treat a baby’s diaper rash.

The $3.3 million malpractice suit filed in Lane County Circuit Court by Shaun and Teri Ferguson alleged the cream halted the child’s development.

Dr. William F. Nelson’s lawyer, Jeffrey Street, said the evidence showed Nelson treated the baby 19 times over 15 months and referred her five times to other medical specialists. The specialists found that the child was suffering from a genetic zinc deficiency, which was responsible for her stunted growth, he said.

According to court records, Nelson, a physician in Florence, twice prescribed Lotrisone, a steroid-containing cream, to treat the child’s diaper rash. It was a dosage experts said was reasonable.

The cream was also prescribed a third time, but records show Nelson was on vacation and did not authorize the third prescription, said his attorney.

The third prescription allowed four refills and the family used four tubes of Lotrisone in a two-month period – a dosage expert witnesses told the jury was excessive.

Following nine days of testimony, the jury voted 10-2 that Nelson was not negligent and that he was not responsible for the incorrect prescription.

In a telephone interview Friday, Teri Ferguson told the (Eugene) Register Guard newspaper she intends to appeal a judge’s pretrial ruling that blocked her from naming PeaceHealth as a defendant for its role in issuing the third prescription.

“We’re not giving up. We are planning to appeal it,” she said.

Her daughter, now 4, is doing “much better,” she said.