Static medicine recall search from official public sources

RecallRx

RecallRx: a static, country-aware search app for medicine recalls from official public sources.

Open the live recall search app

RecallRx turns official medicine recall notices into normalized JSON datasets that can be searched from a static website. The generated app can be hosted on GitHub Pages without a backend, database server, account system, or cloud runtime.

The active datasets are currently Spain / AEMPS, Portugal / INFARMED, and France / ANSM. The app, schema, record IDs, and data paths are country-aware, and the live interface already exposes a planned country slot for Andorra / Ministeri de Salut. Additional authorities are added through separate source adapters without changing the browser search contract.

RecallRx is not a safety certification system. A missing search result only means no matching recall was found in the indexed records. The public app must not claim that a medicine is safe.

Documentation: https://mrueda.github.io/recallrx/

Live Search App: https://mrueda.github.io/recallrx/app/

Quick Start: https://mrueda.github.io/recallrx/docs/usage/quickstart

Data Schema: https://mrueda.github.io/recallrx/docs/technical-details/data-schema

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/mrueda/recallrx

Quick Start

Install locally from the repository root:

python3 -m pip install -e ".[test]"

Validate the bundled seed dataset:

python3 -m recallrx validate data

Build fresh recall data with the Python collector:

python3 -m recallrx build --output data

Build the static deploy directory:

python3 -m recallrx dist

Serve the static app locally:

python3 -m http.server 8000 --directory dist

Data

Generated data is written as static JSON:

data/
  metadata.json
  countries/
    es/
      metadata.json
      recalls-summary.json
      recalls/
      by-code/
      by-year/
      build-report.json
    pt/
    fr/
    ad/

Records use country-scoped identifiers such as ES_AEMPS_R_21_2026. Product codes are represented as structured entries, so each country can keep its own code system:

{"system": "CN", "value": "755215"}

Spain currently uses CN, Portugal uses INFARMED registration numbers as AIM, and France uses CIP without changing the JSON field shape.

Source Collection

Each country source is implemented as an adapter. Adapters use Python HTTP requests, retries, pagination, structured APIs or HTML parsing where available, and transient PDF fallback parsing when useful. They do not rely on wget, and they do not commit downloaded PDFs.

The current Spain / AEMPS source flow is:

• Discover candidates through the public AEMPS WordPress posts API, with the AEMPS search endpoint as fallback.
• Use a configurable backfill start year.
• Parse AEMPS detail pages as the primary source.
• Accept human-medicine recall IDs such as R_21/2026.
• Reject veterinary alerts, cosmetics, product-safety notices, and general news.
• Write parser warnings and rejected candidates to build-report.json.

The current Portugal / INFARMED source flow is:

• Discover candidates from the official paginated INFARMED Alertas listing.
• Accept medicine recall and withdrawal notices marked as Tipo de alerta: med.
• Reject cosmetic and device alerts even when their titles mention withdrawal.
• Parse circular IDs, dates, medicine names, INFARMED registration numbers, lots, expiry dates, manufacturers, reasons, and actions from the detail page.
• Write parser warnings and rejected candidates to build-report.json.

The current France / ANSM source flow is:

• Discover candidates from the official paginated ANSM information-safety list.
• Accept entries marked as RAPPEL DE PRODUIT and Médicaments.
• Reject device, diagnostic, cosmetic, and other non-medicine recalls.
• Parse publication dates, medicine names, manufacturers, CIP codes, lots, expiry dates, reasons, and recall-level text from the detail page.
• Write parser warnings and rejected candidates to build-report.json.

Daily GitHub Pages deployments rebuild fresh recall data before publishing the static app. The workflow can also be run manually from GitHub Actions.

Development

Run the Python test suite:

python3 -m pip install -e ".[test]"
pytest

Run bytecode and frontend checks:

python3 -m py_compile src/recallrx/*.py src/recallrx/adapters/*.py
node --check site/app.js

Validate static data:

python3 -m recallrx validate data

Run the docs checks:

cd docs-site
npm ci
npm run typecheck
npm run build

Citation

No formal citation is available yet. For now, cite the GitHub repository:

RecallRx: static, country-extensible medicine recall search. https://github.com/mrueda/recallrx

Author

Written by Manuel Rueda.

Repository: https://github.com/mrueda/recallrx

Copyright and License

Copyright (C) 2026 Manuel Rueda.

This project is distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.