Government Recalls Monitor

Overview

The Government Recalls Monitor is an Apify Actor that extracts real-time government recalls data from official U.S. regulatory APIs including the FDA (Food, Drug, and Medical Device) and NHTSA (Vehicle). Provide a keyword and the actor returns structured government recalls records including recall ID, product, company, reason, risk level, distribution pattern, and source URL. Whether you're tracking government recalls for consumer safety, compliance research, or product monitoring, this actor delivers accurate government recalls data efficiently.

With multi-agency coverage, keyword filtering, and built-in deduplication, the Government Recalls Monitor ensures comprehensive and clean government recalls data across food, drugs, medical devices, and vehicles.

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Features

• Multi-Agency Government Recalls Coverage – Fetches government recalls from FDA Food, FDA Drug, FDA Medical Device, and NHTSA Vehicle APIs in a single run.
• Keyword Filtering – Filter government recalls by any keyword (e.g., "shrimp", "insulin", "airbag", "Tesla").
• Smart NHTSA Routing – Automatically detects if the keyword is a car brand before querying vehicle government recalls to avoid unnecessary errors.
• Deduplication – Removes duplicate government recalls across all agencies using unique recall IDs.
• Date Sorting – Returns government recalls sorted by most recent recall date first.
• Result Limit Control – Set a maximum number of government recalls records to return per run.
• Proxy Support – Optionally uses Apify residential proxies for reliable government recalls fetching.
• Error Handling – Logs errors per agency and continues processing remaining government recalls sources.
• Dataset Integration – Automatically pushes all government recalls to your Apify dataset for easy export.

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How It Works

1. Input – Provide a keyword and optional max results limit.
2. NHTSA Check – If the keyword matches a known car brand, the actor queries the NHTSA vehicle government recalls API.
3. FDA Queries – The actor fetches up to 1,000 recent records from each FDA endpoint (Food, Drug, Medical Device) and filters them by keyword match.
4. Merge & Deduplicate – All government recalls are merged, deduplicated by recall ID, and sorted by date descending.
5. Build Output – Structures each government recall into a clean record and pushes it to the dataset.

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Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
keyword	String	"shrimp"	Keyword to filter government recalls (e.g., "peanut", "airbag", "metformin", "Toyota").
max_results	Integer	50	Maximum number of government recalls records to return.
proxyConfiguration	Object	{}	Apify proxy configuration (e.g., { "proxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }).

Example input:

{
  "keyword": "shrimp",
  "max_results": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "proxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}

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Output

Each government recall is pushed as a separate dataset record with the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Unique government recalls ID (FDA recall number or NHTSA campaign number).
title	string	Descriptive title of the government recall.
agency	string	Issuing agency: "FDA" or "NHTSA".
category	string	Government recalls category: "Food", "Drug", "Medical Device", or "Vehicle".
company	string	Name of the recalling company or manufacturer.
product	string	Description of the recalled product.
reason	string	Reason for the government recall.
risk_level	string	FDA classification (e.g., "Class I", "Class II") or "Medium" for NHTSA recalls.
recall_date	string	Date the government recall was initiated.
country	string	Country of the government recall (always "United States").
state	string	U.S. state associated with the government recall (if available).
city	string	City associated with the government recall (if available).
status	string	Status of the government recall (e.g., "Ongoing", "Terminated").
quantity	string	Number of units affected by the government recall.
distribution	string	Distribution pattern of the government recalled product.
source_url	string	Direct URL to the government recalls source page (FDA or NHTSA).

Example output:

{
  "id": "F-1234-2025",
  "title": "Frozen Shrimp Products - Food Recall",
  "agency": "FDA",
  "category": "Food",
  "company": "Ocean Harvest Seafood Inc.",
  "product": "Frozen Cooked Shrimp 2 lb bags",
  "reason": "Possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.",
  "risk_level": "Class I",
  "recall_date": "2025-03-10",
  "country": "United States",
  "state": "FL",
  "city": "Miami",
  "status": "Ongoing",
  "quantity": "12,500 cases",
  "distribution": "Nationwide",
  "source_url": "https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts"
}

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Government Recalls Sources

The Government Recalls Monitor fetches data from the following official APIs:

Agency	Category	API Endpoint
FDA	Food	api.fda.gov/food/enforcement.json
FDA	Drug	api.fda.gov/drug/enforcement.json
FDA	Medical Device	api.fda.gov/device/enforcement.json
NHTSA	Vehicle	api.nhtsa.gov/recalls/recallsByVehicle

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Supported Vehicle Brands (NHTSA)

The Government Recalls Monitor automatically queries NHTSA vehicle government recalls for the following brands:

Tesla, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chevrolet, BMW, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, Mazda

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Use Cases

• Consumer Safety – Monitor government recalls for food, drugs, and products you use or sell.
• Compliance Research – Track FDA and NHTSA government recalls for regulatory compliance teams.
• Supply Chain Monitoring – Detect government recalls affecting your supply chain products.
• Journalism & Reporting – Investigate and report on government recalls trends and patterns.
• Legal Research – Gather government recalls data for product liability and legal cases.
• Academic Research – Collect structured government recalls data for public health or policy studies.
• E-commerce – Flag and remove government recalled products from online marketplaces.

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Quick Start

1. Open on Apify – Visit the actor page and click Try for free.
2. Set Keyword – Enter a keyword to filter government recalls (e.g., "peanut butter", "Honda", "metformin").
3. Set Limit – Adjust max_results to control how many government recalls to fetch.
4. Enable Proxy (Optional) – Configure proxy groups for reliable government recalls fetching.
5. Run the Actor – Start the run and monitor progress in the logs.
6. Download Results – Export the government recalls dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

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Technical Stack

• Data Sources – FDA Open API, NHTSA Recalls API (both free and public)
• HTTP Client – requests with optional proxy support
• Keyword Matching – Full-text search across product description, reason, and company fields
• Deduplication – Set-based unique recall ID tracking across all agencies
• Sorting – Date-descending sort on final government recalls results
• Platform – Apify Actor — serverless, scalable, integrated with Dataset and Key-Value Store

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Changelog

v1.0.0 – Initial Release

• Multi-agency government recalls fetching (FDA Food, Drug, Device + NHTSA)
• Keyword-based government recalls filtering across all agency endpoints
• Smart NHTSA routing based on car brand detection
• Deduplication by unique recall ID across all agencies
• Date-descending sorting of government recalls results
• Max results limit control
• Proxy configuration support
• Dataset integration with error handling per agency

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Pricing

• Free for basic usage on Apify (up to certain compute limits).
• Paid plans available for higher volume, priority support, and longer runs.
• Proxy credits consumed if residential proxies are enabled.

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Support & Feedback

• Issues & Ideas – Open a ticket on the Apify Actor issue tracker.
• Documentation – Visit Apify Docs for platform guides.
• API Notes – This actor uses the public FDA Open API and NHTSA Recalls API. No API key is required for basic government recalls access.

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Disclaimer: This actor accesses publicly available government recalls data from the FDA and NHTSA APIs. Please ensure your usage complies with each agency's terms of service. This actor is intended for research and informational purposes only.