Recall Radar Methodology

Sources

Recall Radar uses openFDA enforcement APIs for food, drugs, and medical devices. The current prototype loads the 12 most recently reported records from each source and keeps a local last-known snapshot for outages.

• Food enforcement records
• Drug enforcement records, including some supplement-like products listed in FDA drug data
• Medical device enforcement records

Ranking

Records are sorted to put FDA Class I recalls first, then Class II, then everything else. Ongoing recalls rank above terminated or completed records inside the same class. Newer report dates are used as the final tie-breaker.

Highest concern means FDA Class I. Watch is used for ongoing recalls that are not Class I.

Limits

This is an awareness tool, not a medical or legal decision system. FDA records can be revised, delayed, duplicated, or missing context that matters to a specific household or patient.

Visitors should confirm details with FDA pages, recall notices, product labels, lot codes, clinicians, pharmacists, or manufacturers before acting on medical questions.

Privacy

The prototype does not use login, cookies, tracking scripts, form submission, or personal data collection. Search runs in the browser over records already loaded into the page.

URL search parameters exist only so a visitor can bookmark or share a focused view.