By Peter Galuszka

One real question involving indicted former governor Robert F. McDonnell may well not be the issues about the ethics of public officials he raises.

Indeed, according to Forbes and Slate, the real problem is that unregulated dietary supplements that McDonnell was promoting for his former friend and benefactor Jonnie R. Williams Sr. of Star Scientific are still being sold.

The supplements, marked under the trade name of Anatabloc, are still being sold online weeks after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration formally warned Star Dec. 20 that it must stop selling the product because it was making claims that can’t be supported.

The supplement marketer GNC website, in fact, is pushing 300 tablets of Anatabloc for $99. When he was governor, McDonnell used to carry them around in his pocket and pop them from time to time saying, “They work for me.”

As David Kroll, a professor at North Carolina State University states on Forbes.com, “As such the FDA has ruled that Anatabloc (and smoking suppressant CigRx) are adulterated with an unapproved drug…” The drug is anatabine which comes from tobacco as well as other plants such as potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. Supposedly, anatabine has uses to possibly treat Alzheimer’s, colitis and Hashimoto’s disease, its promoters say.

McDonnell and his wife Maureen accepted more than $165,000 in gifts and loans from Williams and face 14 counts of federal felony charges that could put them in prison for years.

Slate notes: “The McDonnell affair is indicative of the supplement industry’s potential clout. Supplements are now the biggest industry in Utah – worth more than $7 billion a year –and the industry has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to (U.S.) Sen (Orrin) Hatch (R-Utah), some of whose relatives are in the business.”

Star was quick to respond to Kroll’s piece on Forbes, claiming it contained false statements. But the question remains: why is Anatabloc still being sold?

It is another example of too little regulation, not too much.