FDA Drug Adverse Events Scraper

Extract FDA drug adverse event reports and side effect data from the openFDA FAERS database. Search by drug name, seriousness, reaction term, and date range. Returns patient demographics, reported reactions with outcomes, suspect drug details, reporter information, and seriousness flags for every adverse event report filed with the FDA. Over 20 million reports available spanning decades of pharmacovigilance data.

Disclaimer: This actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Data is sourced from the publicly available openFDA API.

What FDA adverse events data can you extract?

This actor wraps the free openFDA Drug Adverse Events API to extract drug safety reports from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS):

• Seriousness flags — serious event indicator, hospitalization, death, life-threatening, disabling outcomes
• Patient reactions — MedDRA preferred terms for each reported reaction (e.g., nausea, headache, cardiac arrest) with outcome codes
• Patient demographics — age, sex, weight when reported
• Suspect drugs — drug name, characterization (suspect/concomitant/interacting), indication, dosage, route of administration
• Drug details — active substance, brand name, generic name, manufacturer from openFDA enrichment
• Reporter information — reporter country, qualification (physician, pharmacist, consumer, etc.)
• Report metadata — safety report ID, receive date, receipt date, country of occurrence

How to search FDA adverse events

By drug name: Enter a drug name like "ozempic", "metformin", or "lipitor" to find all adverse event reports mentioning that drug.

By seriousness: Toggle "Serious Events Only" to filter for reports involving hospitalization, death, life-threatening situations, or disability.

By reaction term: Search for a specific reaction like "nausea", "death", "headache", or "rash" to find reports containing that adverse reaction.

By date range: Set start and end dates to find reports received by the FDA within a specific time window.

Combine filters: Use multiple filters together. For example, search for serious adverse events involving ozempic with a reaction of "nausea" since January 2024.

Output example

Each adverse event record in the output dataset contains:

{
    "safetyReportId": "23353585",
    "serious": "1",
    "seriousnessHospitalization": "1",
    "seriousnessDeath": "",
    "seriousnessLifeThreatening": "",
    "seriousnessDisabling": "",
    "receiveDate": "20240315",
    "receiptDate": "20240315",
    "occurCountry": "US",
    "patientAge": "52",
    "patientAgeUnit": "801",
    "patientSex": "2",
    "patientWeight": "85.5",
    "reactions": [
        { "term": "Nausea", "outcome": "1" },
        { "term": "Vomiting", "outcome": "1" },
        { "term": "Diarrhoea", "outcome": "6" }
    ],
    "drugs": [
        {
            "name": "OZEMPIC",
            "characterization": "1",
            "indication": "Diabetes mellitus",
            "dosageText": "0.5 MG, WEEKLY",
            "dosageForm": "INJECTION",
            "route": "058",
            "activeSubstance": "SEMAGLUTIDE",
            "brandName": "OZEMPIC",
            "genericName": "SEMAGLUTIDE",
            "manufacturer": "Novo Nordisk Inc"
        }
    ],
    "reporterCountry": "US",
    "reporterQualification": "1",
    "senderOrganization": "FDA-Public Use",
    "source": "FDA openFDA Drug Adverse Events Database",
    "sourceUrl": "https://api.fda.gov/drug/event.json"
}

How much does it cost to scrape FDA adverse events data?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay per adverse event result returned.

• $0.00005 per actor start (Apify default)
• Per-result charge based on the number of adverse event records extracted
• No proxy costs — openFDA is a free government API, no proxy needed

A typical search for a popular drug like "ozempic" may return hundreds of reports. Set maxResults to control how many records are returned and manage your budget.

Tip: Start with the default 50 results to preview data, then increase maxResults for full datasets.

Who uses FDA adverse events data?

• Pharma companies — monitor post-market drug safety signals, track adverse event trends for marketed products, support pharmacovigilance programs
• Clinical researchers — analyze drug safety reports for studies, identify adverse reaction patterns across patient populations
• Mass tort lawyers — investigate drug side effects for litigation, identify patterns of serious adverse outcomes, build evidence for class actions
• Insurance companies — assess drug risk profiles for formulary decisions, evaluate claims against reported adverse events
• Journalists — investigate drug safety concerns, uncover unreported side effect trends, hold pharmaceutical companies accountable
• App developers — build drug safety dashboards, patient information tools, or pharmacovigilance monitoring platforms using real FDA data

Tips for best results

• Use generic drug names when brand name searches return few results. The API indexes both brand and generic names.
• Combine seriousness + drug name to focus on the most critical reports for a given medication.
• Reaction terms use MedDRA vocabulary. Common terms include: nausea, headache, dizziness, fatigue, diarrhoea, vomiting, rash, death, cardiac arrest.
• Date ranges help track safety signal emergence over time. Try quarterly windows for trend analysis.
• Export to CSV for spreadsheet analysis or JSON for programmatic use.
• Schedule recurring runs to monitor new adverse events for drugs you are tracking.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
drugName	string	Drug name to search (e.g., ozempic, metformin, lipitor). Default: "ozempic"
seriousOnly	boolean	Only return serious adverse events. Default: false
dateFrom	string	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD). Default: "2024-01-01"
dateTo	string	End date (YYYY-MM-DD). Defaults to today.
reactionTerm	string	Filter by specific reaction (e.g., nausea, death, headache). Optional.
maxResults	integer	Maximum records to return (1-1000, default 50)

Integrations

Export your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel. Schedule runs to monitor new adverse events automatically. Use webhooks to trigger downstream workflows when new safety signals emerge.

This actor works as an MCP server — AI agents can discover and use it to access FDA adverse event data programmatically.