The week in recalls

How this list is made

Each recall is filed under the week of one date, a UTC calendar day. Which date depends on the agency; the recall’s own page names it.

FDA

The day FDA first posted the recall to its Enforcement Report (“Posted” on the recall page), or the day the company’s announcement appeared on FDA’s recalls page, if that came first (“Company announced”). When the day FDA posted it is not known, the day FDA classified it (“Classified”); when we listed the recall before any FDA date, the day we first listed it (“Listed on this site”). FDA’s weekly Enforcement Report, and news roundups built from it, often list the same recall a week or two later.

USDA FSIS

The day FSIS announced the recall or public health alert (“Announced”). An expanded recall keeps its first date.

CPSC

The recall date CPSC published (“Announced”).

NHTSA

The day the manufacturer filed its defect report with NHTSA (“Reported”). NHTSA publishes it days to weeks later, so vehicle recalls keep arriving after a week ends, and news coverage often comes a week or two after the week they are listed in.

Biologics are recalls by FDA’s biologics center (CBER), such as blood, tissue and vaccines, and blood bank equipment. They are usually handled by hospitals, clinics, blood banks and doctors’ offices, not bought in stores. Antibody drugs and other therapeutic biologics that FDA regulates as drugs are listed under Drugs, as FDA files them.

Once a week is over, Recall Canary writes a short post about it from the agencies’ records of that week’s listed recalls only, and rewrites it when they change. Each recall’s own page has the agency’s notice and what to check.

A recall the agency later withdrew stays listed with no risk level, and its own page is marked Withdrawn. A recall notice not yet matched to an agency record is a notice posted on the FDA or CPSC site (a company’s announcement on FDA’s site, or a CPSC news release) before it is matched to the agency’s recall record.

Not listed here: recalls by states, local agencies, other countries or other federal agencies (such as the EPA or the U.S. Coast Guard), and FDA safety alerts that are not recalls. More about dates and sources