SHOCKING: This VOGUE Cover Girl Lost Her Leg Because Of Kotex Tampons

On October 23, 2012, Lauren Wasser, then 24, bought Kotex Natural Balance from her local drug store as she was menstruating. The cover girl of Italian Vogue, Lauren, who changed three tampons that day, started feeling sick later that night at a friend’s party. She drove back home, went to sleep only to be awoken by the police the next day. Later, after a friend came to her house with the police again, she was found on the bedroom floor with her face down with a fever of 107 degrees. Lauren was rushed to the hospital where doctors said she suffered a massive heart attack and organ failure and was ten minutes from death. An infectious disease specialist asked if she had a tampon in. She did so they sent it to the lab, where it came back positive for toxic shock syndrome (TSS) – a rare, life-threatening complication of certain types of bacterial infections.

Lauren was hospitalized for four months following complications from TSS, which included gangrene, severe damage to her left foot and a below-the-knee amputation of her right leg.

Lauren is now suing Kimberly-Clark Corporation—the manufacturer and distributor of Kotex Natural Balance tampons and the grocery stores Kroger and Ralph’s that sold them. Lauren’s lawsuit claims that the Kimberly-Clark Corporation and the grocery stores are ‘negligently, wantonly, recklessly, tortuously, and unlawfully responsible in some manner’ for Lauren’s hospitalization for TSS in part because the disclaimer – ‘Change your tampon every four to eight hours, including overnight’ – on the tampon box was not clear enough.

Hunter J. Shkolnik, her lawyer, said, “Part of our job is to show the jury that it’s not about the warning on the box – it’s about the fact that they’ve had materials available for 30 years that could have been make [tampons] safer, and they’ve chosen not to use them.” By filing suit, the family’s legal team also wants to create awareness about the use of synthetic materials throughout the tampon industry, and to make women aware of the dangers of TSS.

Though rare, TSS has been linked to use of superabsorbent tampons ever since Proctor & Gamble’s Rely tampon resulted in a number of deaths during the 1980s. According to a study conducted by the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, ‘the gelled carboxymethylcellulose’ in Rely tampons acted like agar in a petri dish, providing a viscous medium on which the bacteria could grow.

Over the past 50 years, tampons have morphed from using cotton to synthetic ingredients like rayon and plastic. These synthetic fibers can form an ideal environment for staph bacteria to flourish. “You know cigarettes can kill you, so when you use them, it’s your choice. Had I known all the info about TSS, I would never have used tampons,” she told VICE.

In the fall, Lauren hopes to appear in front of Congress with New York Representative Carolyn Maloney who is trying to pass the Robin Danielson Act, named after a woman who died of TSS in 1998, that would ‘establish a program of research regarding the risks posed by the presence of dioxin, synthetic fibers, chemical fragrances, and other components of feminine hygiene products’.

“I want to give hope to other little kids with amputations and for them to know they are still beautiful. I can turn this into something positive that people can feed off of and grow from and be inspired from. That’s my whole life goal now,” she told PEOPLE.

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