Openfda Search Animal Events
openfda_search_animal_eventsRead-only
Search adverse event reports for veterinary drugs and devices submitted to the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine. Records include animal species, breed, age, weight, drug name and route, adverse reactions (using VeDDRA terminology), and outcome. Use to investigate safety signals for veterinary products, find reports by animal species or drug, or explore reaction patterns.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| skip | No | Number of records to skip for pagination (default 0). openFDA caps pagination at 25000 records; a higher value returns a pagination_limit_reached error. | |
| sort | No | Sort expression — a field path optionally suffixed with :asc or :desc; comma-separate for multi-field sort. Example: original_receive_date:desc. Field paths take only letters, digits, underscores, and dots; anything else is rejected before the request. A well-formed but non-sortable field still causes a query error — use a documented field name. | |
| limit | No | Maximum number of records to return (1-1000, default 10). Serialized record size varies by three orders of magnitude across openFDA endpoints, so the page is also bounded by a 24000-byte serialized budget: a page that would overrun it returns fewer records than requested and reports the cut on page_omitted. Whenever any record matched, at least one comes back, however large it measures. | |
| stage | No | Stage the matched set on a DataCanvas for SQL analysis with openfda_dataframe_query. Default false — the call returns one page for one upstream request. When true, records are also drained onto a canvas table up to a size budget (staged_rows reports how many reached it). Staging is for record-level SQL over a bounded slice; for a distribution over everything that matched, openfda_count_values aggregates server-side in one request. Requires CANVAS_PROVIDER_TYPE=duckdb. | |
| search | No | openFDA search query using field:value syntax. Examples: animal.species:"Dog", drug.brand_name:"Bravecto", reaction.veddra_term_name:"Vomiting", serious_ae:"true". Omit to browse recent reports. Double quotes, parentheses, and range brackets must balance, and the query must not end on a backslash — each is rejected before the request. | |
| canvas_id | No | DataCanvas session id from a prior call. Passing one stages this search onto that canvas (same effect as stage=true) so result sets accumulate for cross-table joins. Omit to stage onto a fresh canvas. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| meta | No | Response metadata | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| notice | No | Canvas staging disclosure when the call staged, the byte-budget disclosure and the routes to the withheld records when the inline page was bounded, and guidance when results are empty or paging overshot — how to broaden filters or adjust the query. | |
| results | No | Animal adverse event records. Key fields: unique_aer_id_number, original_receive_date, serious_ae, animal (species, gender, breed, age, weight), drug[] (brand_name, active_ingredients, route, dose, administered_by), reaction[] (veddra_term_name, number_of_animals_affected), outcome[] (medical_status), primary_reporter, type_of_information. | |
| spilled | No | True when this call staged its matched set on the canvas — use canvas_id with openfda_dataframe_query for SQL. Absent when staging was not requested. | |
| canvas_id | No | DataCanvas session id for the staged result set. Present when this call staged. Pass to openfda_dataframe_query / openfda_dataframe_describe, or back into this tool to accumulate more tables on the same canvas. | |
| truncated | No | True when fewer rows reached the canvas than matched upstream — staging stopped at its size budget or openFDA's 25000-row pagination ceiling. Narrow the query (filters, date range) for a complete set. | |
| page_bytes | No | Serialized size of results in this response, in bytes. Present only when the 24000-byte inline budget bounded the page; larger than the budget only when a single record exceeds it on its own. | |
| staged_rows | No | Rows written to the canvas table. Compare with meta.total: a smaller value means staging stopped at its size budget and the table holds only the first staged_rows records. | |
| canvas_table | No | Canvas table holding the staged rows. Present when rows were staged; reference it in SQL FROM clauses. | |
| page_omitted | No | Records dropped from the requested limit/skip window so the page fit the inline byte budget. Present only when the page was bounded. Read them by re-calling with skip advanced by the number of records returned, lower limit for a smaller page, or pass stage=true to query a bounded drain of the match with openfda_dataframe_query. | |
| totalResults | No | Total matching animal adverse event records in the dataset | |
| effectiveQuery | No | Search filter applied to the query, as submitted to openFDA |