openFDA Recalls Scraper — Drug, Device & Food Safety

When the FDA announces a recall, somebody has to pull that product off a shelf, out of a warehouse, or out of a patient's hands — and the people who need to know are rarely the ones watching the FDA website.

This Actor turns the official openFDA feeds into a filtered, structured feed: which firm recalled what, why, how serious the FDA judged it, and where the product went. Five feeds in one schema — drugs, medical devices, food, and drug shortages.

No API key, no login, no proxies.

What you get

The alert

• reportedDate, initiatedDate, terminatedDate — always ISO, whatever format the feed stores
• classification — Class I is the FDA's most serious: a reasonable probability of serious harm or death. Class II is temporary or reversible harm; Class III is unlikely to cause harm.
• status — Ongoing, Completed, Terminated

Who and what

• firm — the recalling company, and manufacturers where openFDA resolves it
• product, productType, brandNames, genericNames
• quantity and codeInfo — how much, and which lots

Why, and how far it spread

• reason — the FDA's own wording: "Lack of Assurance of Sterility", "Sesame Seeds White were labeled as Curry Powder Sweet"
• distribution — the distribution pattern, from a single state to nationwide
• city, state, country, postalCode
• voluntaryOrMandated — whether the firm acted first or the FDA required it

Provenance

• recallNumber, eventId, feed, feedLabel, sourceApi, sourceUrl, source

The five feeds

Feed	Records	Risk class	What it covers
Drug recalls and enforcement	17,899	yes	Prescription and OTC drug recalls
Medical device recalls	59,025	—	Device corrections and removals
Medical device enforcement	39,794	yes	Device enforcement reports
Food recalls and enforcement	29,317	yes	Food, including undeclared allergens
Drug shortages	1,623	—	Current and resolved supply shortages

Counts measured against the live API on 26 August 2026.

Who uses this

• Importers, distributors and retailers — filter by firm or product and know the day a supplier's product is recalled, instead of hearing it from a customer.
• Hospital and clinic procurement — Class I device recalls for equipment already on the ward.
• Pharmacies and wholesalers — drug shortages, with the status and the company, as a purchasing signal.
• Food producers and grocers — allergen mislabelling is the most common food recall reason, and it moves fast.
• Compliance, quality and insurance teams — a documented, dated record of what was recalled and why.
• Developers and AI agents — one schema over five FDA feeds, callable over the API or as an MCP tool.

Example output

{
  "feed": "drug-recalls",
  "reportedDate": "2026-07-22",
  "firm": "Chiesi USA, Inc.",
  "product": "CLEVIPREX (clevidipine injectable emulsion) 50 mg/100 mL",
  "classification": "Class II",
  "reason": "Lack of Assurance of Sterility",
  "status": "Ongoing",
  "voluntaryOrMandated": "Voluntary: Firm initiated",
  "recallNumber": "D-0769-2026",
  "source": "openFDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), public domain"
}

Input

Field	What it does
feeds	Which of the five to read. Empty = drug recalls.
since	The monitoring filter: reported on or after this date. Empty = the last 90 days.
until	Upper bound of the window.
firm	Recalling firm contains — track one supplier.
product	Product contains — insulin, catheter, peanut butter.
classification	Class I, II or III. Device recalls and drug shortages carry no class and are skipped when this is set.
includeRaw	Attach the untouched FDA record.
maxItems	Safety cap. 0 = unlimited.

Every Class I drug recall this quarter — the ones that can kill:

{ "feeds": ["drug-recalls"], "classification": "Class I", "since": "2026-06-01" }

Watch one supplier across drugs, devices and food:

{ "feeds": ["drug-recalls", "device-enforcement", "food-recalls"], "firm": "Philips", "since": "2026-01-01" }

Run it on a schedule

Save your filters as a Task, leave the dates empty so each run covers the last 90 days, and schedule it daily. Attach an Apify integration and new recalls land in Slack, e-mail, Google Sheets, a webhook, or Make and Zapier — which is the point: a recall is only useful if it reaches the person who has that product.

Deduplicate on recallNumber where present, and on eventId plus feed for the device feeds, which do not always carry one.

Use it from code or from an AI agent

Start runs and read the dataset over the Apify API or CLI, as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML. The Actor is also exposed as an MCP tool through the Apify MCP server, so an agent can answer "has anything we buy from this supplier been recalled this year?" in one call.

Pricing

Pay per event: a small fee per record exported. API calls only — no browser, no proxy — so platform usage on top is negligible. Use maxItems for a hard ceiling.

Where the data comes from

The openFDA API, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA data is a work of the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain; openFDA asks that results not be presented as an official FDA endorsement, and every row carries the source field for that reason.

Honest limits, all measured against the live API on 26 August 2026.

openFDA refuses to page past 25,000 records per feed, so a filter matching more than that cannot be exported in one run — the Actor says so in the log and stops there rather than pretending it covered everything. Narrow the date window to reach the rest.

The feeds are not uniform. Medical device recalls and drug shortages carry no risk classification, so a Class filter cannot apply to them and those feeds are skipped when you set one. The shortages feed also has no reason column; its reason field is filled from the FDA's related_info explanation instead.

Recalls appear when the FDA publishes them, which can be days or weeks after a firm begins one — the initiatedDate and reportedDate fields let you see that gap yourself. This Actor is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the FDA.

Frequently asked questions

What does Class I actually mean?

It is the FDA's most serious level: a reasonable probability that using the product will cause serious harm or death. Class II is temporary or reversible harm, Class III is unlikely to cause harm.

Can FDA data be used commercially?

Yes. FDA data is a work of the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain. openFDA asks only that results not be presented as an official FDA endorsement.

Can I monitor one supplier across drugs, devices and food?

Yes. Put the company in firm and select all the feeds: the openFDA Recalls Scraper reads five FDA sources into one schema, so a single run covers every category that supplier sells into.

Why can't I export more than 25,000 records?

openFDA refuses to page past that per feed. The Actor says so in the log and stops rather than pretending it covered everything — narrow the date window to reach the rest.

Related Actors

Same engine, same official-source approach:

• US Building Permits — issued permits from six US cities, with contractor and declared value
• US Business Registry — newly registered companies by state
• GLEIF LEI — LEI lookup, lapsed-LEI screening, parent companies
• Swiss Commercial Register (SHAB) — new companies, changes, deletions and bankruptcies
• EU Tenders (TED) — European procurement notices and contract awards
• Brazil CNPJ — Receita Federal company data and partners

---

Italiano

Esporta i richiami e i provvedimenti della FDA americana: farmaci, dispositivi medici, alimenti e carenze di farmaci. Azienda che richiama, prodotto, motivo, classe di rischio e diffusione. La Classe I indica una probabilità concreta di danno grave o morte. Filtri per data, azienda, prodotto e classe: chi importa, distribuisce o acquista sa il giorno stesso se un prodotto che tratta è stato richiamato.

Deutsch

Exportiert FDA-Rückrufe und Vollzugsmaßnahmen für Arzneimittel, Medizinprodukte und Lebensmittel sowie Lieferengpässe: rückrufendes Unternehmen, Produkt, Grund, Risikoklasse und Verbreitung. Klasse I bedeutet erhebliche Gefahr schwerer Schäden oder Todesfolge. Filter nach Datum, Firma, Produkt und Klasse — für Importeure, Händler und Beschaffung.

Français

Exporte les rappels et actions de la FDA : médicaments, dispositifs médicaux, aliments et pénuries de médicaments. Entreprise, produit, motif, classe de risque et diffusion. La Classe I signale une probabilité réelle de préjudice grave ou de décès. Filtres par date, entreprise, produit et classe, pour les importateurs, distributeurs et services achats.