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By Anna Skinner
Associate News Editor
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already issued 519 Class 1 recalls so far this year, fueling concerns from Americans that deadly recalls are on the rise.
A Class 1 recall is "a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death," according to the FDA's website. When examining weekly data for Class 1 recalls through May for the past four years, the products listed most frequently were in the drug, food and medical device categories.
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Learning that consuming a recalled product can have fatal consequences is disconcerting, but Americans can be at ease that deadly recalls don't appear to be on the rise. According to the FDA data, in 2023 there were 729 Class 1 recalls through May, more than 200 above the current number for this year. The majority of the 2023 recalls occurred during the week of March 22, when 410 recalls were issued.
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There were 538 Class 1 recalls through May in 2022, according to the FDA website. In fact, the last time there were less deadly recalls through May than this year was in 2021, when there were only 308 Class 1 recalls.
Newsweek reached out to the FDA by email for comment.
Research published last December by life sciences software company MasterControl found that food recalls issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the FDA have jumped by 115 percent since 2018. There were 280 recalls issued between both agencies in 2018, and the number more than doubled to 603 recalls issued in 2022.
However, the increase doesn't seem to be reflected in the number of Class 1 recalls issued by the FDA across multiple product categories.
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According to the data available on the FDA's website, medical devices and food are the products most likely to have a recall classified as potentially having fatal consequences. The products were recalled for reasons such as contamination, like the presence of listeria, or the presence of unintended ingredients, like nuts or eggs. Drug products also were listed to have some Class 1 recalls, for reasons such as incorrect labeling or super-potent drugs. Veterinary products like dog food also appeared occasionally, for reasons such as salmonella contamination.
Recent Class 1 recalls from the FDA include Gibson Farms' Organic Light halves and pieces of shelled walnuts after the company learned they might be contaminated with E. coli. In April, Tama Corporation recalled 24-ounce containers of "Queso de Mano PAISA" after a laboratory analysis identified the product was contaminated by Listeria monocytogenes.
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