FDA Food Adverse Events Scraper

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Extract adverse event reports from the FDA CFSAN Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS) — a public database of reports submitted to the FDA regarding food, dietary supplements, and cosmetic products. No API key or authentication required.

What it does

This actor queries the openFDA food adverse events API and returns structured records for each adverse event report. You can search by product/brand name, reaction type, date range, or retrieve the most recent reports.

The CAERS database contains 140,000+ reports covering:

• Foods and beverages
• Dietary supplements (vitamins, minerals, protein powders)
• Cosmetics and personal care products

Data source

API: https://api.fda.gov/food/event.json
Provider: U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) / CFSAN
Access: 100% public, no authentication required
Coverage: Reports from 2004 onwards

Input

Modes

• recent — Returns the most recent adverse event reports with no filter. Best for daily monitoring.
• search — Free-text search across all report fields.
• byProduct — Search by brand or product name (e.g. "Red Bull", "5-Hour Energy", "whey protein").
• byReaction — Search by adverse reaction type (e.g. "nausea", "vomiting", "diarrhea", "headache").
• byDate — Filter reports where the event occurred within a date range. Provide dateFrom and dateTo in YYYYMMDD format.

Example inputs

Get 10 recent reports:

{"mode":"recent","maxItems":10}

Search by product name:

{"mode":"byProduct","searchQuery":"5-Hour Energy","maxItems":100}

Search by reaction:

{"mode":"byReaction","searchQuery":"nausea","maxItems":200}

Date range:

{"mode":"byDate","dateFrom":"20240101","dateTo":"20240630","maxItems":500}

Free-text search:

{"mode":"search","searchQuery":"energy drink cardiac","maxItems":50}

Output

Each record in the dataset contains:

Product fields

Each item in products contains:

Example output record

{
"reportNumber":"2024-CFS-002280",
"dateStarted":"2024-01-26",
"reactions":["Abdominal discomfort","Dizziness","Loss of consciousness"],
"outcomes":["Life Threatening"],
"products":[
{
"brandName":"LAY BAR-B-QUE LOW SODIUM POTATO CHIPS",
"industryCode":"07",
"industryName":"Snack Food Item"
}
],
"consumerGender":"Female",
"consumerAge":63.0,
"consumerAgeUnit":"year(s)",
"recordType":"foodAdverseEvent",
"scrapedAt":"2026-06-10T14:00:00.000000+00:00",
"sourceUrl":"https://api.fda.gov/food/event.json"
}

Use cases

• Food safety research — Identify patterns in adverse events linked to specific products or ingredients
• Regulatory compliance monitoring — Track reports for specific brands or product categories
• Consumer health analytics — Analyze reaction frequency and severity by product type
• Journalism & public interest — Investigate trends in dietary supplement safety
• Competitive intelligence — Monitor adverse event reports for competitor products

FAQs

Is this data free to use?
Yes. The FDA CAERS data is public domain, provided by the U.S. government at no cost.

Why are some fields missing from certain records?
The actor uses omit-empty output — fields not present in the original FDA report (e.g. age, date_started) are not included in the output record. This ensures clean, consistent data with no null values.

What is the maximum number of records I can retrieve?
The maxItems parameter accepts values from 1 to 1,000. The FDA API itself contains 140,000+ records, so you can run the actor multiple times with date range filters to retrieve larger datasets.

How current is the data?
The FDA updates the CAERS database regularly. Reports from 2004 onwards are available.

Does this require proxy or cookies?
No. The FDA openFDA API is a public REST API with no bot protection or authentication requirements.

What report types are included?
The database includes voluntary reports from consumers, healthcare professionals, and manufacturers about adverse events related to foods, dietary supplements, and cosmetics.