FDA Drug Adverse Events Scraper

Export structured public FDA FAERS public adverse-event reports for discovery, comparison, monitoring, and governance.

What you get

Search the public FDA FAERS catalog and save one deduplicated row per public adverse-event report. Results include report identity, dates, countries, seriousness flags, reaction terms, implicated products, indications, routes, and FDA provenance. Use discovery inputs for market maps and exact-name inputs, when available, for stable monitoring cohorts.

Output fields

Field	Description
safetyReportId / reportVersion	FAERS case identity and version.
receivedDate / receiptDate	Dates FDA received the report.
primarySourceCountry / occurCountry	Where the report originated and where the event occurred.
reportType	How the report was classified by FDA.
serious, seriousnessDeath, seriousnessHospitalization, seriousnessLifeThreatening, seriousnessDisabling	Seriousness flags as coded by FDA.
reactions	Reaction term and outcome for each adverse reaction listed.
drugs	Each implicated product's name, role (suspect/concomitant), indication, route, brand names, generic names, and manufacturers.
searchQuery	The drug name that produced this row.
source / sourceUrl	Attribution and a direct link back to the FAERS case.
medicalDisclaimer	FDA's standard caution that a report does not establish causation.

Example output

{"safetyReportId":"12345678","receivedDate":"20260701","serious":true,"reactions":[{"term":"Rash","outcome":"6"}],"drugs":[{"name":"ASPIRIN","characterization":"1"}],"source":"FDA Adverse Event Reporting System via openFDA"}

Input parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
drugNames	Yes	Up to ten brand or generic medicinal-product names.
receivedDateFrom	No	Inclusive YYYY-MM-DD lower bound.
receivedDateTo	No	Inclusive YYYY-MM-DD upper bound.
seriousOnly	No	Restrict output to reports encoded as serious.
maxResultsPerQuery	Yes	Maximum reports per drug.
maxResults	Yes	Maximum unique reports saved.

At least one discovery or exact-name input is required. Result limits apply after cross-input deduplication, and only saved unique rows are charged.

Use cases

• Pharmacovigilance and safety teams: track incoming adverse-event volume and seriousness for a product portfolio.
• Regulatory and compliance researchers: build a dated evidence trail of public FAERS filings for a drug or drug class.
• Market access and competitive analysts: compare reported reaction profiles across competing products.
• Journalists and academic researchers: study public adverse-event trends over time with reproducible, source-linked queries.

Limitations

FAERS reports are unverified safety reports, not proof that a product caused an event. The Actor excludes reporter, sender, company-case, patient-demographic, and narrative fields and must not be used for medical decisions.

Compared to alternatives

Current Apify Store alternatives include maydit/us-fda-adverse-events-scraper and automation-lab/fda-maude-adverse-events-scraper. Thirdwatch saves a source link on every row and removes duplicates before you are charged, so you pay only for unique results. Compare current Store listings directly because competitor features and pricing can change.

FAQ

Does this Actor require a login or API key?

No. It queries the public openFDA FAERS API and does not require an account, login, or private credentials.

How should I monitor a drug portfolio over time?

Keep drug names and result limits explicit, save the input as an Apify Task, and retain each run's dataset rather than overwriting it. That gives you a dated history you can diff for new or changed reports.

Does a public record prove the final conclusion?

No. Public-source records are evidence for analysis, not the analysis itself. Keep provenance, apply documented rules separately, and require qualified review for high-stakes decisions.

Where can I find more workflows?

Visit Thirdwatch public-data scrapers and related FDA data Actors: FDA Drug Labels Scraper, FDA Recalls Scraper, and ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper.

Last verified: 2026-07