💊 FDA Drug Recall & Safety Risk Monitor

🚀 Compare drugs by real FDA recall history in one run. Active recalls, severity classification, and reasons - ranked side by side, not a raw filing dump.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-07-07 · 📊 8 fields per drug · Built on openFDA (official, no key)

🎁 Try it free: the free Apify plan returns up to 10 results per run - enough to see the output quality. Any paid Apify plan unlocks full-size runs.

Give it a list of drug names and it pulls FDA enforcement (recall) records for each, then scores severity and active-recall count - so you can tell at a glance which of several drugs has an ongoing Class I recall right now versus one with a clean recent history.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Pharmacists, healthcare researchers, patient-safety teams, health journalists, supply-chain/procurement	Multi-drug safety screening, supplier risk checks, health content research, pharmacovigilance monitoring

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📋 What this Actor does

• Fetches FDA enforcement (recall) records per drug from openFDA's official API
• Counts ongoing recalls and identifies the most severe classification (Class I/II/III)
• Computes a composite riskLevel (HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW)
• Surfaces the top distinct recall reasons and most recent recall date

💡 Why it matters: "68 recalls" means nothing on its own. "15 ongoing, worst Class I, most recent reason: presence of foreign substance" tells you whether to worry.

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🎬 Full demo

🚧 Video walkthrough coming soon - the Quick Start below takes under 3 minutes end to end.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
drugs	string	(prefilled)	Comma-separated drug names (brand or generic), up to 8
maxResults	integer	20	Recall records sampled per drug (5-100)

Example: Compare 4 common OTC/generic drugs

{ "drugs": "ibuprofen, metformin, lisinopril, acetaminophen", "maxResults": 20 }

Example: Deep single-drug history

{ "drugs": "amoxicillin", "maxResults": 100 }

⚠️ Good to know: openFDA's own disclaimer applies - "do not rely on openFDA to make decisions regarding medical care... assume all results are unvalidated." This Actor surfaces that data as-is; it is not medical advice.

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📊 Output

Each drug returns 8 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or consume via the Apify API.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
drug	string	ibuprofen
recallCount	integer	68
ongoingRecalls	integer	15
mostSevereClass	string	Class I
riskLevel	string	HIGH
mostRecentRecallDate	string	20260302
topReasons	array	["Presence of foreign substance", "CGMP Deviations"]
generatedAt	string	2026-07-07T10:37:51Z

📦 Sample record

{"drug":"ibuprofen","recallCount":68,"ongoingRecalls":15,"mostSevereClass":"Class I","riskLevel":"HIGH","mostRecentRecallDate":"20260302","topReasons":["Presence of foreign substance","CGMP Deviations","Failed Tablet/Capsule Specifications"],"generatedAt":"2026-07-07T10:37:51Z"}

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏆	Ranks by severity, not volume. A composite risk score, not a raw recall-count dump.
💊	Multi-drug in one run. Compare up to 8 drugs side by side.
⚡	Built on openFDA. Official U.S. government data, free, no API key.
🔁	Automatic retries + honest empty results. Zero-match searches are treated as valid (per openFDA's own API contract), not errors.
💳	Pay per result. No subscription. A typical 4-drug run costs about $0.03.

📊 Turns 4 manual FDA database searches into 1 ranked risk table.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Setup
⭐ FDA Drug Recall & Safety Risk Monitor (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Any drug, up to 8 per run	Live per run	⚡ 2 min
Browsing FDA.gov manually	Free	One drug at a time	Live	🐢 Manual, one by one
Pharma safety SaaS	$100s+/mo subscription	Broad	Live	🐢 Sales call + onboarding
Manual copy-paste	Free	Current session only	One-shot	🐢 Hours of clicking

Pick this Actor when you want a ranked, multi-drug safety view without a subscription.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free Apify account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the FDA Drug Recall & Safety Risk Monitor page on the Apify Store.
3. ✏️ Set your input. List your drugs - or just press Start, the prefilled example works.
4. 🚀 Run it. Watch results stream into the Dataset tab.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML - or pipe them anywhere via the Apify API.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

• Pharmacists/pharmacies: screen a drug list for active recalls before a dispensing run.
• Procurement/supply chain: check a supplier drug catalog for recall risk.
• Health journalists: back up a story with real recall severity data.
• Patient-safety teams: monitor a formulary for emerging Class I risks.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

• 🎓 Research & academia - pharmacovigilance and drug-safety coursework datasets.
• 🎨 Personal & creative - health-content research for blogs/newsletters.
• 🤝 Non-profit & civic - consumer-advocacy and public-health awareness work.
• 🧪 Experimentation - prototype a drug-safety dashboard on real data.

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🔌 Automating FDA Drug Recall & Safety Risk Monitor

Node.js (apify-client on NPM):

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('saint_person/fda-drug-recall-monitor').call({ drugs: "ibuprofen, metformin", maxResults: 20 });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Python (apify-client on PyPI):

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('saint_person/fda-drug-recall-monitor').call(run_input={"drugs": "ibuprofen, metformin", "maxResults": 20})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items

📚 Full Apify API documentation

Apify Schedules triggers this Actor on any cron interval - weekly for a standing formulary safety watch.

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🧠 Use via MCP (for AI agents)

FDA Drug Recall & Safety Risk Monitor is directly callable by any MCP-compatible AI agent (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and others) through Apify's hosted MCP server - no custom integration code needed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/sse?actors=saint_person/fda-drug-recall-monitor",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Once connected, just ask your agent something like: "Use the FDA Drug Recall Monitor Actor to check these 4 drugs on our formulary for active recalls."

📚 Apify MCP server docs

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this Actor

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

It queries openFDA's official drug enforcement (recall) API per drug, then computes ongoing-recall count, worst classification, and a composite risk level.

Is this medical advice?

No. openFDA's own disclaimer applies: assume all results are unvalidated, and this Actor is not a substitute for professional medical or regulatory guidance.

What do Class I/II/III mean?

FDA classifications by severity: Class I = reasonable probability of serious health consequences or death; Class II = temporary or reversible health consequences; Class III = unlikely to cause harm.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval.

⚖️ Is this data legal to collect?

This Actor only collects data that is publicly accessible via openFDA's free API. No login, no bypass of access controls.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Transient errors retry automatically with backoff. A drug with zero recall matches returns a clean LOW-risk row, not an error.

🆘 What if I need help?

Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

• Zapier
• Make
• n8n
• Google Sheets
• Slack
• Gmail
• Webhooks
• MCP

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🔗 Recommended Actors

Pairs well with Public Company Financials for due diligence on pharma manufacturers.

💡 Pro tip: browse the complete saint_person collection for more tools like this.

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🆘 Help & custom requests

• 🐛 Something not working? Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.
• 🛠️ Need a custom feature or a different data source? Open an issue describing what you need.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available data is collected. Not medical advice.