How to check FDA recalls for a drug, food, or medical device

Step-by-step guide to finding active and historical FDA recalls — by recall number, by company, or by date — using free openFDA data with structured-data canonical pages per recall.

Steps

1. Look up a specific recall by its FDA recall number

   If you have the FDA recall number, go directly to /recall/{recall_number}. Number prefixes:

   • H-XXXX-YYYY — food
   • D-XXXX-YYYY — drugs
   • Z-XXXX-YYYY — devices
   • V-XXXX-YYYY — veterinary

   Each page shows classification (Class I/II/III), recalling firm, product description, reason for recall, distribution pattern, and the FDA Enforcement Reports source URL. Append .md for Markdown.

2. Browse recent recalls by product type

   Recent recalls: /api/v1/fda/recalls/recent?product=drug — also food, device, other.

3. Find all recalls for a specific company

   Firm-dossier: /api/v1/fda/firms/{firm_name} — recall history + adverse events + 510(k) clearances.

   For a public-traded company, also hit /entity/{ticker} for the full cross-vertical timeline including FDA events alongside SEC + courts + clinical trials.

4. Filter to only the most-serious (Class I) recalls

   Class I = "reasonable probability of serious adverse health consequences or death" — the urgent ones.

   The /today digest surfaces qualifying indexed Class I recalls whose FDA initiation dates fall inside its published UTC source-date window. Check /api/v1/freshness before treating an empty section as proof of no recall.