Health Canada Drug News

MedEffect Canada Drug Safety Portal

Health Canada's MedEffect Canada portal provides consumers, patients, and health professionals with centralized access to adverse reaction reporting, drug safety advisories, and health product recall information. The page links to the Canada Vigilance adverse reaction database, new safety and effectiveness reviews for health products, and a searchable Recalls and Safety Alerts Database. Recent updates include monthly Canada Vigilance database entries (April 2 and March 6, 2026) and a guidance document on interpreting significant changes to medical devices (March 31, 2026).

Subscribe to MedEffect e-Notice Health Product Advisories

Health Canada's MedEffect e-Notice subscription page allows healthcare professionals and consumers to receive free health product safety alerts, advisories, and recalls via email. Subscribers select their province or territory and preference for Drugs, Medical devices, Natural health products, and/or Vaccines. The Health Product InfoWatch monthly publication for healthcare professionals is included with subscription. Changing subscription details requires unsubscribing from the previous address and re-subscribing with the new address.

Health Canada Recall Database Lists Recent Safety Alerts

Health Canada's official Canadian recalls database provides a searchable index of active and archived safety alerts across health products, food, and consumer products. The database contains 18,932 active records and 14,430 archived records, updated as of April 22, 2026. Recent entries within the past 7 days include a head positioning device recall, a gluten-free pizza starter kit recalled due to mould, a carbon monoxide alarm recalled for potential failure to operate, a locking screw medical device recall, and a health professional risk communication regarding ALECVAR and severe hypertriglyceridemia risk.