openFDA search — drug events, recalls, labels, devices (API)

One normalised row per openFDA record from six collections on https://api.fda.gov: drug adverse event reports (FAERS), drug recall enforcement reports, drug labels (SPL), device adverse event reports (MAUDE), device recalls and food recall enforcement reports. Pass any openFDA search expression plus a date range; get record id, dates, product/drug names, classification, status, reason or reaction terms, firm, state and country in the same columns whichever endpoint you chose, with the record's own JSON attached — ready for CSV or JSON.

The default input (drug recalls, last 90 days by report date, 300 rows) succeeds within 5 minutes and returns rows — Apify auto-tests it daily.

Data source and status

Publisher	U.S. Food and Drug Administration — openFDA (https://open.fda.gov)
API	https://api.fda.gov/{drug,device,food}/… — public; an API key is optional (https://open.fda.gov/apis/authentication/). Without a key: 1,000 requests per day per IP, 240 per minute; with a key: 120,000 per day
What this Actor reads	Plain GET requests with search=(your query) AND <date_field>:[from TO to], sort=<date_field>:desc, limit=100, skip=N, at most two requests per second; the key, when given, is sent only as the api_key query parameter and never logged or written to the dataset
Refresh cadence	openFDA refreshes each collection on its own schedule (enforcement reports and labels roughly weekly, FAERS and MAUDE files roughly quarterly/monthly — see https://open.fda.gov/apis/). The Actor reads live on every run; the API's own last_updated for the endpoint is stored in RUN_SUMMARY, and fetched_at on each row is the fetch time
Copyright	Works of the United States Government are not subject to copyright in the U.S. (17 U.S.C. §105); openFDA data are released under the terms at https://open.fda.gov/license/. Please cite openFDA as the source
Known caveats	One query returns at most 25,100 records (openFDA rejects skip above 25,000) — narrow the search or dates for more; "no matches" is the API's HTTP 404 and yields zero rows with a warning; a malformed search expression makes the API answer HTTP 500 and the run fails with the API's message; the state column is empty for FAERS and labels (the API carries none); raw_json is trimmed to 6,000 characters (raw_json_truncated says when)

Honesty note: openFDA data are unvalidated per the API's own disclaimer and are informational, not medical advice — the rows are the API's own fields mapped to a common set, nothing is inferred, summarised or classified by this Actor, and a run stops with an error rather than guess when the API's shape changes.

Identification: the requests carry a product-token User-Agent (SteelyardActor/0.1 (openfda-search; …) — api.fda.gov's WAF rejects any agent string containing "nmap", which the brand name RetrainMap does) and the operator's contact address in the standard From: header (RFC 9110 §10.1.2).

Input

Field	Type	Meaning
endpoint	select	drug_enforcement (default), drug_event, drug_label, device_event, device_recall, food_enforcement
search	string	Optional openFDA search expression in the endpoint's own field names, e.g. patient.drug.medicinalproduct:"ibuprofen", classification:"Class I" AND state:CA
date_field	string	Optional; default per endpoint: receivedate, report_date, effective_time, date_received, event_date_posted, report_date
date_from / date_to	YYYY-MM-DD	Optional, inclusive. Both empty = the last 90 days; only date_from = through today; only date_to = from 1900-01-01
max_records	integer	Default 300, at most 25,100
api_key	secret string	Optional openFDA key
request_interval_ms	integer	Default 500 (floor 250)
contact_email	string	Sent in the From: header

Example — FAERS reports naming ibuprofen received since January 2026:

{ "endpoint": "drug_event", "search": "patient.drug.medicinalproduct:\"ibuprofen\"", "date_from": "2026-01-01", "max_records": 500 }

Output (dataset row)

Common columns for every endpoint: endpoint, endpoint_path, record_id, record_id_field (which field the id came from — for recalls not yet classified recall_number is empty and event_id is used instead), date_field, date (the date field's value, YYYY-MM-DD), secondary_date, product, generic_names (list), classification, status, reason_or_terms, firm, state, country, source_url (the openFDA page query the record came from, without any key), raw_json (the record's JSON, ≤ 6,000 characters), raw_json_truncated, fetched_at.

How the common columns are filled per endpoint:

Endpoint	record_id	date / secondary_date	product / generic_names	classification / status	reason_or_terms	firm
drug_enforcement, food_enforcement	recall_number	report_date / recall_initiation_date	product_description / openfda.generic_name	classification (Class I–III) / status	reason_for_recall	recalling_firm
drug_event	safetyreportid	receivedate / receiptdate	drug medicinalproduct names / active substances	serious (1 = Serious, 2 = Not serious) / seriousness flags set (death, hospitalization, …)	MedDRA reaction terms	sender.senderorganization
drug_label	set_id	effective_time / —	openfda.brand_name / openfda.generic_name	openfda.product_type / label version	purpose or indications_and_usage	openfda.manufacturer_name
device_event	mdr_report_key	date_received / date_of_event	device brand_name / generic_name	event_type / type_of_report	product_problems	manufacturer name
device_recall	product_res_number	event_date_posted / event_date_initiated	product_description / openfda.device_name	openfda.device_class / recall_status	reason_for_recall	recalling_firm

Text columns are trimmed to 1,000 characters; the full record is in raw_json. A run summary (query, the API's own match count and last_updated, pages, requests, whether the skip ceiling or the pay-per-event budget stopped the run) is stored as RUN_SUMMARY in the run's key-value store.

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price
run-start — once per run	$0.10
record — per row written	$0.005

The default pull (≤ 300 rows) costs at most $1.60; 1,000 records cost $5.10. Rows stop when your run's maximum charge is reached; the run summary says so.

Operator

Steelyard Ventures LLC (RetrainMap) — info@steelyardclinical.com. Not affiliated with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Actor writes only to its own dataset and key-value store; it stores no credentials and sends nothing else.