FDA Adverse Events Scraper - FAERS + MAUDE Data Export

Pull FDA drug and medical-device adverse event reports from openFDA, flattened to one clean row per report, and export to CSV, JSON, or Excel.

What it does

This FDA adverse events scraper queries the official openFDA API and returns two kinds of safety reports in one tool: FAERS adverse drug reaction reports (20M+) and MAUDE medical device event reports (25M+). Unlike drug-only scrapers and bloated "everything openFDA" generalists that dump raw nested JSON, it flattens each deeply nested openFDA report into a single, analysis-ready row - so FAERS data, drug adverse event exports, and MAUDE database exports land in your dataset already cleaned. Filter by product, reaction or device problem, seriousness, country, and received-date window, then export to CSV or Excel for pharmacovigilance, post-market surveillance, and drug safety signal detection.

Who it's for

• Pharmacovigilance and drug-safety teams monitoring products for new or serious adverse events
• Medical-device safety, regulatory, and QA teams tracking device malfunctions and injuries
• Pharma and medtech researchers running comparative or epidemiologic analyses
• Product-liability and litigation professionals pulling report narratives and metadata for cases
• Academics and data scientists who need standardized, flattened adverse-event datasets

What you get / Output

Each report is flattened to one row with these fields:

Field	Description
reportId	Unique FDA report identifier
receivedDate	Date the FDA received the report
serious	Seriousness flag (death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability)
products	Reported product / brand name(s)
genericNames	FDA-enriched generic name(s)
manufacturer	Manufacturer / applicant information
indications	Reported reason the product was used
reactions	MedDRA-coded reactions, with outcome codes
productProblems	Device problem descriptors (device mode)
eventType	Event classification (death / injury / malfunction)
deviceClass	FDA device class / model (device mode)
narrative	Truncated event narrative text
patientAge	Patient age
patientSex	Patient sex
occurCountry	Country where the event occurred

Fields populate according to mode: drug (FAERS) reports emphasize reactions, indications, and demographics; device (MAUDE) reports emphasize product problems, event type, and device class.

Input / How to query

Input	What it does
reportType	drug = FAERS drug reports; device = MAUDE device reports
productName	Brand or generic drug name (e.g. OZEMPIC, metformin) or device name (e.g. insulin pump, IMPELLA); matched against reported and FDA-enriched names. Leave empty for all
reactionOrProblem	Drug mode: MedDRA reaction term (e.g. Pancreatitis). Device mode: product problem (e.g. Battery Problem). Leave empty for all
seriousOnly	Drug mode: only serious reports (death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability). Device mode: only Death or Injury events
country	Two-letter country where the event occurred (drug mode only; ignored in device mode)
receivedSince	Only reports received on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
receivedUntil	Only reports received on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
maxResults	Upper bound on reports returned per run

Example use cases

• Drug safety signal detection: Pull every serious FAERS report for a single drug over the last quarter and scan reaction terms for emerging patterns.
• Device post-market surveillance: Export MAUDE malfunction and injury events for an insulin pump line to feed a QA / complaint-handling review.
• Product-liability research: Collect adverse-event narratives, manufacturer, and outcome data tied to a specific product for a lawsuit.
• Competitive intelligence: Track a competitor's drug or device adverse events and manufacturer trends over a date range.
• Epidemiologic analysis: Build a standardized, flattened adverse drug reaction dataset filtered by reaction, country, and demographics for a research study.

Recurring use / scheduling

Run it on a schedule (daily, weekly, or monthly) to monitor a product for new or serious adverse events - true post-market surveillance without manual polling. Set receivedSince to your last run date so each run only pulls newly received reports, then dedupe on reportId when appending to your master dataset to keep the history clean. Point the run's dataset at a webhook or your BI tool to get alerted when new serious reports appear.

How do I download FAERS data without hitting the openFDA 25,000 record API limit?

Set your filters (product, reaction, date window, seriousOnly) to scope the query, and use maxResults plus incremental receivedSince / receivedUntil windows to page through data across scheduled runs instead of pulling everything at once. Each run writes a clean dataset you can append and dedupe on reportId.

How can I export FDA adverse event reports to CSV or Excel?

Every run stores results in an Apify dataset that you export in one click to CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or pull via the API. Because reports are already flattened to one row each, the CSV opens cleanly in Excel with no nested-JSON wrangling.

How do I search the MAUDE database for medical device adverse events in bulk?

Set reportType to device, optionally add a productName (e.g. IMPELLA) and a reactionOrProblem device problem (e.g. Material Rupture), then raise maxResults and use a receivedSince / receivedUntil window to collect device events in bulk.

How do I get both FAERS drug and MAUDE device adverse events in one dataset?

This is the tool's core differentiator. Run it once with reportType = drug and once with reportType = device (or on two schedules) - both write the same flattened schema, so you can merge them into a single combined adverse-events dataset.

How do I monitor a drug for new adverse event reports (signal detection)?

Schedule the Actor with a fixed productName and roll receivedSince forward each run so it only returns newly received reports. Dedupe on reportId and watch the serious, reactions, and eventType fields for emerging safety signals.

How do I pull only serious adverse events (death, hospitalization, disability) from FAERS?

Set seriousOnly to true in drug mode to return only reports flagged serious - death, hospitalization, life-threatening, or disability. In device mode the same flag returns only Death or Injury events.

Do I need an API key to access the openFDA adverse events API?

No. openFDA adverse-event endpoints are public and this Actor handles the querying for you - you only provide the search filters. You just need an Apify account to run the Actor.

How do I flatten nested openFDA adverse event JSON into one row per report?

That is exactly what this scraper does automatically. openFDA returns deeply nested report objects; the Actor converts each one into a single flat row with the fields listed in the Output table, so you never have to write JSON-flattening code.

How do I get adverse event data for a product liability lawsuit?

Filter by the product (and optionally reaction / problem, seriousness, and date range), then export the dataset. The narrative, manufacturer, reactions, productProblems, and receivedDate fields give you the report metadata and event descriptions commonly used in forensic and litigation research.

What is the difference between FAERS and MAUDE data?

FAERS is the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System for drugs - it captures adverse drug reactions, MedDRA-coded reactions, indications, and patient demographics. MAUDE is the FDA's medical device event database - it captures device malfunctions, injuries, and deaths with product problems and device class. This Actor covers both via the reportType input.

Data source & notes

• Source: the official, public openFDA adverse-event endpoints - drug/event (FAERS, 20M+ reports) and device/event (MAUDE, 25M+ reports). This is public U.S. government data, free to use.
• Cleaning: deeply nested openFDA report JSON is flattened to one row per report; the narrative field is truncated.
• Coverage limits: the country filter applies to drug mode only. Field population depends on what the reporter submitted - adverse-event reports are voluntary and can be incomplete, and a report does not establish that a product caused the event. Data reflects openFDA's own refresh cadence.