FDA Data Scraper — openFDA Recalls, Adverse Events & Drug Labels (No API Key)

▶️ Run the FDA Data Scraper on Apify »

One click, no setup — the hosted Actor turns the official openFDA datasets into clean, flat, export-ready rows.

Scrape U.S. FDA drug, device and food data straight from the official openFDA API — no API key, no login. This FDA data scraper pulls drug recalls, drug adverse events (20M+ records), drug labels, device recalls, device adverse events (24M+ records), 510(k) clearances and food recalls into clean, flat, structured JSON — with recalling firm, product description, recall reason, Class I/II/III classification, status and report dates — filtered with openFDA's own search syntax. Because it reads the official government open-data API there are no captchas and no fragile HTML parsing, and one run can return tens of thousands of records.

Pick a dataset, add an optional searchQuery (e.g. classification:"Class I" or recalling_firm:pfizer), and export an FDA safety dataset for legal case-sourcing, regulatory compliance monitoring, drug-safety research and pharmacovigilance. You only need a free Apify account.

This is a documentation & usage guide. The scraper itself runs on the Apify platform — open it here.

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📚 Table of contents

• What you get
• Use cases
• Quick start (4 ways)
• Input
• Output
• Integrations & automation
• Export formats
• FAQ
• Related actors

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🎁 What you get

Flat, structured JSON records. The common enforcement/recall fields surfaced across datasets:

Field	Description
_dataset	The openFDA dataset this record came from (e.g. drug/enforcement)
recalling_firm	Company that initiated the recall (enforcement datasets)
product_description	Description of the recalled or reported product
reason_for_recall	Stated reason for the recall
classification	FDA recall classification (Class I, II or III)
status	Recall status (Ongoing, Completed, Terminated)
recall_number	FDA-assigned unique recall identifier
report_date	Date the recall was reported (YYYYMMDD)
recall_initiation_date	Date the recall was initiated (YYYYMMDD)
voluntary_mandated	Whether the recall was voluntary or FDA-mandated
distribution_pattern	Geographic distribution of the recalled product
product_quantity	Quantity of product in distribution
city / state / country	Location of the recalling firm
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was scraped

ℹ️ Note: enforcement/recall datasets share the fields above. Other datasets return their own native openFDA schema — e.g. drug/event and device/event return the full adverse-event report (patient, reaction, drug/device details), drug/label returns SPL label sections, and device/510k returns clearance metadata. Every native openFDA field for the chosen dataset is preserved.

• 💊 9 FDA datasets — drug recalls, drug adverse events, drug labels, device recalls, device adverse events, device 510(k) clearances, food recalls, food adverse events, and animal & veterinary adverse events.
• 🛡️ Official openFDA API — reliable, never blocked, no captchas, no HTML breakage on redesigns.
• 🔎 Powerful filtering — openFDA search syntax by recalling_firm, classification, report_date ranges, product type and any other field.
• 📈 Massive scale — 20M+ drug and 24M+ device adverse events; tens of thousands of records per run.
• 🔓 No API key / no login — an openFDA key is fully optional (higher rate limits only); just a free Apify account.

💡 Use cases

• Legal case sourcing — product-liability and drug-injury firms monitor recalls and adverse events at scale to identify plaintiffs and cases.
• Regulatory compliance — maintain an always-current FDA enforcement feed for your own product categories and classifications.
• Competitor & market intelligence — track competitor recalls, adverse-event reports and 510(k) clearances.
• Drug & device safety — pharmacovigilance and post-market surveillance from FDA's official adverse-event data.
• Risk & insurance analytics — quantify recall frequency and severity by firm, product type and classification.
• Journalism & watchdogs — surface Class I recalls and safety trends as they are reported.
• Research datasets — build reproducible, exportable FDA datasets for academic or health-tech work.

🚀 Quick start (4 ways)

1. Apify Console (no code)

1. Open the Actor: apify.com/logiover/fda-data-scraper
2. Click Try for free.
3. Leave everything empty for the most recent drug recalls, or pick a dataset and add a searchQuery filter, then click Start.
4. When the run finishes, open the Output tab and export to CSV / JSON / Excel.

2. Apify CLI

npm i -g apify-cli
apify login
apify call logiover/fda-data-scraper

3. API / curl (run sync, get dataset items)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logiover~fda-data-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "dataset": "drug/enforcement",
    "searchQuery": "classification:\"Class I\"",
    "maxRecords": 10000
  }'

4. apify-client (JavaScript & Python)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('logiover/fda-data-scraper').call({
    dataset: 'device/recall',
    searchQuery: 'recalling_firm:medtronic',
    maxRecords: 0,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("logiover/fda-data-scraper").call(run_input={
    "dataset": "device/recall",
    "searchQuery": "recalling_firm:medtronic",
    "maxRecords": 0,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

More end-to-end snippets: examples/cli.md · examples/api-curl.md · examples/javascript.md · examples/python.md

📥 Input

Pick a dataset — everything else is optional. Empty input returns the most recent drug recalls.

Field	Type	Default	Description
dataset	enum	drug/enforcement	Which openFDA dataset: drug/enforcement (drug recalls), drug/event (drug adverse events, 20M+), drug/label (drug labels, 258K), device/recall, device/event (device adverse events, 24M+), device/510k (510(k) clearances), food/enforcement (food recalls), food/event (food adverse events), animalandveterinary/event.
sort	enum	newest	newest, oldest (by the dataset's primary date field) or default (openFDA native order).
searchQuery	string	""	Optional openFDA search filter, e.g. classification:"Class I", recalling_firm:pfizer, report_date:[20260101+TO+20261231]. Empty = all records.
maxRecords	integer	—	Max records to save. 0 = all available for the query (openFDA caps a single query at ~26,000 — narrow with searchQuery for more).
apiKey	string (secret)	—	Optional openFDA API key for higher rate limits. The Actor works fine without it.
proxyConfiguration	object	auto	Leave empty to let the Actor auto-pick a working proxy group.

Example — the most serious (Class I) drug recalls

{ "dataset": "drug/enforcement", "searchQuery": "classification:\"Class I\"", "maxRecords": 10000 }

Example — every device recall for a specific firm

{ "dataset": "device/recall", "searchQuery": "recalling_firm:medtronic", "maxRecords": 0 }

Example — drug adverse events in a date range (pharmacovigilance)

{ "dataset": "drug/event", "searchQuery": "receivedate:[20260101+TO+20261231]", "maxRecords": 5000 }

Search filter syntax: openFDA uses a simple field:value syntax. Combine terms with +AND+, use quotes for phrases (classification:"Class I"), and use [start+TO+end] for date/number ranges. Field names differ per dataset — see the openFDA field reference for each endpoint.

📤 Output

One flat record per FDA row. Trimmed sample (drug recall):

{
  "_dataset": "drug/enforcement",
  "recalling_firm": "Example Pharma Inc.",
  "product_description": "Example Drug 10mg Tablets, 100-count bottle",
  "reason_for_recall": "Failed dissolution specifications",
  "classification": "Class I",
  "status": "Ongoing",
  "city": "Trenton",
  "state": "NJ",
  "country": "United States",
  "recall_number": "D-1234-2026",
  "report_date": "20260115",
  "recall_initiation_date": "20260108",
  "voluntary_mandated": "Voluntary: Firm initiated",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-06T08:30:00.000Z"
}

The default FDA Records dataset view shows dataset, recalling firm, product, reason, classification, status and report date as a sortable table in the Apify UI.

🔌 Integrations & automation

• Schedules — run daily for an always-fresh FDA recalls and adverse-events feed; recalls update constantly.
• Webhooks — fire on run finish to trigger compliance alerts or a database load.
• Google Sheets / Excel — push records to a spreadsheet for monitoring dashboards.
• Cloud storage — export to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage or your data warehouse via the API.
• No-code automation — connect to Zapier, Make, n8n or Pipedream through Apify to build regulatory-monitoring workflows.

📁 Export formats

Every dataset can be downloaded or fetched via the API as JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), JSONL, XML or HTML.

❓ FAQ

Do I need an FDA or openFDA API key?

No. The Actor uses the public openFDA API, which is accessible without an API key, account or login. You can optionally add a free openFDA key for higher rate limits, but it is not required.

Can I scrape FDA data without an API key or login?

Yes. There is no FDA account, login or API key required — only an Apify account. The Actor pulls publicly available FDA records over the official openFDA API.

Is this an openFDA API alternative?

It is a ready-to-run openFDA data extraction tool that calls the official openFDA API for you, so you skip writing code, handling pagination and managing rate limits — a practical openFDA API alternative for non-developers who just want the data in CSV or JSON.

Which FDA datasets can I scrape?

Nine: drug recalls (enforcement), drug adverse events (20M+), drug labels (258K), device recalls, device adverse events (24M+), device 510(k) clearances, food recalls, food adverse events, and animal & veterinary adverse events.

How do I get only Class I FDA drug recalls?

Pick the drug/enforcement dataset and set searchQuery to classification:"Class I" to export just the most serious drug recalls.

Can I pull all FDA recalls for a specific company?

Yes. Use a searchQuery like recalling_firm:pfizer on any enforcement dataset to collect every recall linked to that firm.

How much data can I get in one run?

Tens of thousands of records. openFDA caps a single query at roughly 26,000 records — to extract more, split your work with narrower searchQuery filters (e.g. by date range or firm) across multiple runs.

How do I export openFDA data to CSV or JSON?

Pick a dataset, run the Actor, then download the results as CSV, JSON, Excel or XML from the dataset — or pull them via the Apify API.

How fast is it and does it get blocked?

It's fast and reliable — because it uses the official API there are no captchas or anti-bot blocks. The Actor auto-selects a working proxy group to avoid openFDA's shared-pool rate limits.

Is it free?

The Actor runs on Apify's pay-per-result model and can be tried on the free tier first — you're only charged for the records saved. See the Pricing tab on the Actor page.

Is it legal to scrape FDA data?

Yes — openFDA is the FDA's official open-data API, intended for public programmatic access. The Actor collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for how you use and present it.

🔗 Related actors

Building a compliance, health or public-data research pipeline? Pair the FDA scraper with these:

• ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper — 🩺 clinical trials by condition, intervention, sponsor and phase.
• NPI Registry Scraper — 👩‍⚕️ U.S. healthcare providers with NPI, taxonomy and address.

👉 Browse all logiover actors on Apify Store — 180+ scrapers across real estate, jobs, crypto, social media & B2B data.

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📄 Documentation only — this repository contains no source code. The Actor runs on the Apify platform. ▶️ Run it: https://apify.com/logiover/fda-data-scraper

Licensed under the MIT License · © 2026 logiover