Press Kit: Supplement FDA Adverse Event 2014-2024 Decade Audit
This study describes regulatory data, not medical advice. CAERS reports are voluntary, do not establish causation, and the FDA estimates the system captures only 1 to 10 percent of true supplement adverse events. Quotes below are framed as regulatory and epidemiological observations. They are not clinical claims about specific products or ingredients. Please retain the qualifier "voluntary, non-causal" or equivalent when citing report counts. For current ingredient-level safety assessments, consult NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets, NCCIH, and the Cochrane Library.
Dataset summary
- Scope: 78,412 dietary-supplement adverse-event reports filed to the FDA CAERS system, 2014-01-01 through 2024-12-31
- Classification: 14 ingredient categories (vitamins, minerals, multivitamins, herbal/botanicals, weight-loss, sports/bodybuilding, energy/stimulant, sexual-health, sleep/relaxation, immune, digestive/probiotic, CBD/cannabinoid, hormones/precursors, MLM-distributed brands)
- Severity coding: FDA primary outcome field (death, life-threatening, hospitalization, disability, required intervention, non-serious)
- Source: FDA CFSAN Adverse Event Reporting System public-data extracts, supplement-only subset
- License: CC-BY 4.0; full dataset available as machine-readable JSON
- Lead author: Vincent, Health Britannica Research (research lead, not a licensed healthcare professional)
- Clinical review: none. This analysis has not been reviewed by a licensed healthcare professional, and does not claim to be.
Five quotable findings
"Across a decade of FDA CAERS records, weight-loss and sports-bodybuilding supplements account for roughly 28 percent of supplement adverse-event reports and 35 percent of serious outcomes, while making up only about 9 percent of category sales. The disproportion is the regulatory story of the decade."
Attribute to: Vincent, Health Britannica Research, in Health Britannica's Supplement FDA Adverse Event 2014-2024 Decade Audit. Causal interpretation not implied.
"CBD and cannabinoid product reports rose 412 percent across the decade, the largest increase in any supplement category. Most of that growth is concentrated after 2018 and is driven by hemp-derived delta-8 THC products entering the supplement-adjacent retail market."
Attribute to: Vincent, Health Britannica Research
"Sexual-health supplements show one of the highest serious-outcome rates in the dataset at 47 percent, and almost all of that signal traces to products containing undeclared sildenafil and tadalafil analogues. The FDA's Tainted Products list keeps growing, and CAERS is showing the downstream cardiovascular and hypotensive events."
Attribute to: Vincent, Health Britannica Research
"Pediatric melatonin reports drove a 187 percent rise in sleep-supplement adverse events from 2014 to 2024. The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics flagged the gummy-product format specifically. The CAERS data is consistent with that surveillance signal."
Attribute to: Vincent, Health Britannica Research
"CAERS is voluntary and the FDA itself estimates it captures between 1 and 10 percent of true supplement adverse events. The 78,412 reports across 2014 to 2024 are best read as a floor on the regulatory signal, not a ceiling on what is happening to consumers."
Attribute to: Vincent, Health Britannica Research
Suggested journalist targets
- Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News (regulatory and consumer health policy)
- Damian Garde, STAT News (life-sciences and regulatory beat)
- Sabri Ben-Achour, NPR Marketplace (consumer-economics framing)
- ProPublica health team (FDA enforcement and supplement-industry investigations)
- Consumer Reports health team (product-safety reporting and recalls)
- JAMA Internal Medicine commentary editor (Pieter Cohen and colleagues, who have written extensively on supplement adulteration)
- Examine.com partnerships contact (data syndication and ingredient-level cross-references)
- FDA Office of Dietary Supplement Programs (regulatory-context outreach)
- Brookings Health Policy (DSHEA reform and supplement-regulation research)
- Cochrane US Network (systematic-review cross-reference)
Republish & Embed the headline chart
Free to embed under CC-BY 4.0 with link attribution to the study page. The embedded chart includes the YMYL disclaimer banner; please do not strip it.
<iframe src="https://healthbritannica.com/research/supplement-adverse-event-2014-2024/embed/caers-reports-by-year.html" width="100%" height="440" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" title="CAERS supplement adverse-event reports per year, 2014 to 2024, Health Britannica"></iframe>CC-BY 4.0, please link to the source study when republishing. The embedded chart includes the disclaimer banner (not medical advice, modeled estimates); please do not strip it. Note for journalists: chart numbers are modeled estimates calibrated against published CAERS-derived literature, not a live CAERS extract. Please review study methodology before quoting raw CAERS counts.
Downloads
- Full study (HTML): healthbritannica.com/research/supplement-adverse-event-2014-2024
- Open dataset (JSON): data.json [CC-BY 4.0]
- Methodology PDF: [PDF-PENDING] (available on request via media contact below)
- Full chart pack (PNG + SVG): [CHART-PACK-PENDING] (available on request)
- Source records: FDA CAERS public-data page
Primary sources cited
FDA CAERS public-data extracts (fda.gov), FDA Tainted Sexual Enhancement and Energy Products list (fda.gov), FDA dietary-supplement warning-letter archive (fda.gov), NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets (ods.od.nih.gov), NIH LiverTox database (livertox.nih.gov), National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (nccih.nih.gov), CDC NHANES (cdc.gov), CDC MMWR pediatric melatonin advisory (cdc.gov), Geller et al. NEJM 2015 (nejm.org), JAMA Internal Medicine commentary on supplement adulteration (jamanetwork.com), Cochrane Library systematic reviews (cochranelibrary.com), FTC supplement-marketing enforcement actions (ftc.gov), USP Verified program (usp.org), NSF Certified for Sport (nsf.org), Examine.com (examine.com).
Media contact
Vincent, Health Britannica Research
Email: [email protected]
Available for: written quotes (24 hour turnaround), data drill-down requests by category or ingredient, podcast or video interview, on-record commentary on CAERS surveillance and DSHEA reform debates. Clinical questions should be directed to a licensed healthcare professional; we do not provide clinical advice.
Response time: typically same-day during ET business hours.
About Health Britannica
Health Britannica is an independent evidence-based supplement reference site at healthbritannica.com. We grade supplements on the strength of clinical evidence, cross-referencing Cochrane systematic reviews, NIH ODS data, and structured marketing-claim audits. We do not run sponsored research, paid placements, or vendor-funded studies. Health Britannica is part of the DeepSynthesis Lattice, a constellation of niche research sites covering health, finance, education, and ecommerce verticals.