RecallCast

Hey folks, welcome to RecallCast, a half-decent way of keeping up on all those product, food, and drug recalls. I started working on this a year ago, worked for a couple weeks, and then got busy and left it go for a year, but have really been putting this together over the last few weeks.

Here’s the idea: RecallCast scrapes the recall notices from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission). You log in and set up an alert for a term you want to watch — it could be “Diet Pepsi Vanilla” or “coffee” or “Zyrtec” or “hammock” — and if a recall comes in that matches any of your terms, RecallCast sends you an email. Eventually, it will send you an SMS if you want.

It’s nothing crazy, but it might be useful for some folks, and I don’t think there’s too much out there that serves this purpose.

The idea came from a story I heard (again, about a year ago) on NPR about how many folks miss recalls, and end up (literally) losing an eye because they were using contaminated eye contact solution. Stores sometimes miss the recall notice, distributors sometimes miss the notice, and sometimes you’ve just had that product sitting around for a while. The big recalls (like Firestone tires) get attention on the local news and in the paper, but thousands of other recalls happen each year that few people hear about. This kind of thing happens to thousands of people a year.

So, after sitting down for a week to get it done, and with the design talents of a certain Ali Felski, it’s finally in a usable state.

If it sounds like something you’re interested in, give it a go. Of course I’m always looking for feedback or suggestions, and to that end I’ve set up a support page on GetSatisfaction. I look forward to hearing what you think!