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For years, farms have been using antibiotics on their animals to boost product size and survival rates. In recent news, antibiotic use has been questioned due to the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains that make treatments for infections difficult. Now, according to a new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could be blamed for the lack of regulation of antibiotic use on farms, which could potentially endanger health.

"The FDA knew the risks, but they still haven't done anything to revoke the approval of these drugs," commented co-author of the report, Avinash Kar, an attorney for the NRDC according to TIME.

For this report, the NRDC examined FDA documents that were attained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The council discovered that the FDA's regulation on farm's antibiotic use has been fairly poor. The report found that the agency started reviewing 30 feed additives that contained penicillin or tetracyclines between 2001 and 2010. In 1977, the agency found that penicillin or tetracyclines based antibiotics were unsafe for humans.

The agency went about its review based on two criteria, which were the 1973 safety regulations and the 2003 guidelines, which were created to assess the risks involved with antibiotics and the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. In 1973, the agency had decided to mandate drug companies to prove that using antibiotics in animals was safe The agency then classified the 30 feed additives as low, medium or high risk.

The NRDC reported that at least 26 of the feed additives that the agency reviewed did not meet the standards set in 1973. The NRDC also found that 18 of the 30 feed additives were actually labeled "high risk" by the agency. 12 of the additives that are being used were never proven to be safe by the manufacturers. The NRDC concluded that all 30 feed additives would never be approved today.

"They are not meeting their responsibility to protect public health," Kar added reported by the Washington Post. "They need to be doing better."

Currently, the NRDC found that at least nine of the additives are being marketed and 28 of the feed additives are still technically approved for farm use. Only two were withdrawn from the market.

"Based on its review of this and other information, the Agency chose to employ a strategy that would more broadly address the concerns about the production use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals," the FDA commented according to Reuters.