Quoted from http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=4507
Pfleger's mother plans to sue contraceptive company Yaz
by Jack Dodson, November 4, 2010
Joan Cummins, the mother of Michelle Pfleger, the Elon University freshman who died at Elon University Sept. 24, has been talking to a lawyer and plans to sue Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. on the grounds that its oral contraceptive Yaz caused the blood clots that led to her death.
Cummins started talking to the lawyer Oct. 29, after friends told her about cases they'd heard of people who had died because of using Yaz, which Pfleger had been taking for acne. She said at first, she needed to take a few weeks to grieve, but after a while, the idea became hard to ignore.
"Immediately after she died, everybody started talking," Cummins said. "I kind of had to talk a couple weeks and let it sink in."
Part of what surprised her when she started to research were Yaz's links to blood clots, which were the cause of Pfleger's death.
"She was completely healthy," Cummins said. The day before she died, Pfleger had been treated with an analgesic by a physician due to a knee injury. Cummins said it was a normal injury, which raised questions about where the clots came from.
This isn't the first time the company is being sued for blood clots allegedly caused by Yaz, according to BNET, a business news site affiliated with CBS. Attorneys in Ohio are gathering plaintiffs to sue the company for the same reason as Cummins.
Cummins said the legal process will be a long one, and her lawyer wants her to take it slow, but she wants something to focus on.
"She wants me to just kind of slow down a little bit, but I need something to put my energy into," Cummins said.