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Measuring Productivity in the 90's:
Optimists vs. Skeptics
An article in the August 2nd issue of The New York Times discusses two views of recent worker productivity in America - the "optimist" view that American productivity has been high and the "pessimist" view that productivity has been low. Each view is being pushed by a group of adherents - the productivity enthusiasts on one hand and the productivity skeptics on the other. And each group is using statistics and data to bolster its claims.
According to the productivity enthusiasts, American worker productivity is presently high and is accelerating. According to the skeptics, broad-based economic data flatly contradict that assertion.
The article asserts that the productivity optimists base their observations about the healthy state of the U.S. economy solely on productivity. Moreover, the optimists charge that official productivity measures showing weak growth are inaccurate. They believe productivity has been mismeasured. They mine data to attempt to prove this. Or they adopt more positive, narrower measures of productivity.
According to the article, the productivity skeptics point to broad-based indicators, like Gross Domestic Product, where the total output of the workforce for the same number of hours worked has been almost stagnant since 1992. The skeptics also point out that "data mining" for favorable productivity gains is both inaccurate and a misuse of statistical methods. Written by Times reporter Louis Uchitelle, the article appears on page 25.
Focus is on Diagnosis As Melanoma Rates Soar
A report in the August 6th issue of The New York Times questions whether malignant melanoma is being overdiagnosed. Two Emory University dermatologists recently suggested in a paper published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings that many early melanoma lesions, if left alone, would never grow to threaten life. Like many other microscopic cancers that are now being revealed through sophisticated tests, the Emory dermatologists maintain, many melanoma lesions may never become medically significant before the patients die of other causes.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine which early melanoma lesions(in situ melanoma) are biologically benign, since there is no animal model and because dermatologists remove such lesions during office visits - not wanting to leave it alone to see if it will become invasive. "Malignant melanoma" is clinically defined as invasive cancers, not in situ lesions that have not spread from the epidermis. According to the Times article, several sources state the lifetime risk of getting malignant melanoma has risen dramatically - from about 1 person in 1,500 in 1935 to about 1 person in 75 by the year 2000. The article was written by the Times's personal health reporter, Jane Brody, and appears on page C8.
Gulf War Data on Internet Harmed
U.S. War Efforts, Report Says
According to an article in the August 8th issue of The New York Times, an internal investigation by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency found that the release of hundreds of intelligence reports on the Pentagon's Internet site for veterans of the Persian Gulf war caused serious damage to intelligence sources and methods. The results of the investigation, summarized in a report written by the House Intelligence Committee, indicate that a large amount of documents and data were released to an Internet site designed to give gulf war veterans information about possible causes of gulf war-related illnesses.
However, the pressure to declassify a large volume of information quickly and post it to the Pentagon's Internet site (named Gulflink) possibly allowed over two hundred documents to be posted to the Gulflink web site that should have remained classified. Last year the Pentagon removed those intelligence reports from Gulflink at the C.I.A.'s request. The C.I.A. maintained the documents had been declassified too quickly and disclosed too much information about intelligence-gathering methods. But many gulf war veterans had already copied the documents from Gulflink, and a Washington publishing house released the entire set on its own web site. The CIA then returned the documents to GulfLink. (The Times reports the Internet address of Gulflink is: (http:www.gulflink.osd.mil/). Written by Philip Shenon, the report appears on page A17.