OpenFDA FAQs

Question 1

What specific types of FDA data can I query with this tool?

Accepted Answer

You can query a wide range of FDA data, including adverse event reports (drugs, food, devices), drug labels, drug approvals (NDAs/ANDAs), medical device clearances (510(k)/PMA), enforcement reports, product recalls, and National Drug Code (NDC) directory information.

Question 2

How does OpenFDA handle API limitations and errors?

Accepted Answer

The tool features a robust openFDA API client with built-in retry mechanisms (exponential backoff) and rate-limit awareness. It also performs automatic error normalization for common HTTP responses like 404, 429, 5xx, and 400, ensuring reliable and consistent data retrieval.

Question 3

Is an API key required to use OpenFDA?

Accepted Answer

While OpenFDA functions without an API key (with a daily limit of 1,000 requests), obtaining a free API key from open.fda.gov is recommended, as it significantly increases your daily request limit to 120,000, enabling much more extensive data collection.

Question 4

What is OpenFDA and what does it do?

Accepted Answer

OpenFDA is a powerful software tool designed to access and query comprehensive FDA data. It provides specialized utilities to retrieve information on drugs, food, medical devices, and product recalls, streamlining data collection for analysis and research.

Question 5

Can I use OpenFDA to aggregate and count data across different endpoints?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the `openfda_count` tool allows you to aggregate and tally unique values for any field across all 19 openFDA endpoints. You can also apply optional search filters to scope your aggregations and retrieve up to 1,000 ranked term-count pairs.

OpenFDA

OpenFDA

Key Features

Use Cases

Key Features

Use Cases