U.S. product recall events decline, but number of units impacted grows

“While the ongoing global health crisis continues, it seems that regulators across most market categories are looking ahead and starting to increase surveillance and enforcement,” Chris Harvey, Sedgwick senior vice president, said in a release. (Credit: Naypong Studio/Shutterstock.com)

For the second year in the past decade, more than 1 billion units of food, drugs, medical devices, automobiles and consumer products were recalled, according to Sedgwick’s State of the Nation Recall Index report. However, the number of recalls actually declined for most industries during the past year, but the number of units impacted per event increased.

During 2021, three recalls occurred that involved more than 100 million units, Sedgwick reported. This included a medical device and pharmaceutical recall that each had more than 108 million impacted units, while a single syringe recall involved in excess of 267 million units. In 2021, there were more than 602 million medical devices recalled, which was the highest number of units affected (in the sector) in a single year during the past decade.