The New York Times, in an article titled "The Secret Agents of Capitalism Are All Around Us," profiled "undercover marketing" techniques used recently to promote an undisclosed brand of water in fashionable Lower East Side Manhatten bars.

In an industry-friendly puff piece bragging that Minnesota is the nation's number one producer of farmed elk used for food and "health supplements," Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Joy Powell makes no mention of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), the mad cow-type illness devastating elk and deer in western states and spreading across North America through virtually unregulated trafficking among game farms. CWD is already suspected in the cases of a number of young people in the US who have died in the last few years from CJD, the human equivalent of mad cow and mad elk disease.

Scientists and experts who advise the Environmental Protection Agency on a broad range of regulations governing toxic chemicals and air and water quality frequently have ties to the affected industries or other conflicts of interest, according to a new government study.