Not only are existing government policies not slowing rates of new HIV/AIDS infections, but some programs may actually sustain infection rates because they're missing important information, a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of Medicine claims.

The Institute, part of the National Academy of Sciences, this week issued the "No Time to Lose: Getting More From HIV Prevention" report -- which criticizes the Clinton Administration for its HIV/AIDS policies, the New York Times reports.

If the federal government redirected the $775 million spent annually on HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, "thousands of new H.I.V. infections could be avoided each year if we gave greater emphasis to prevention and were smarter in the way we spent our prevention dollars," stated Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg, Harvard University provost and co-chairman of the committee that produced "No Time to Lose."

There are about 40,000 new HIV cases reported in the U.S. each year, a number that hasn't changed for at least eight years.

The report states that many programs, however, have proved to sharply reduce infection rates, including: tracking HIV cases by community so prevention efforts can be launched in these areas; more accurate and informative sex education programs; more frequent public health messages; and boosting needle-exchange and drug treatment programs for addicts that inject drugs.

For example, the $250 million spent on government-supported sex education programs have focused on abstinence as the only alternative for HIV prevention. There is no evidence to show these programs help reduce HIV transmissions, however, and they probably should be abandoned or adapted to include safe-sex alternatives, the report states.

Women, young people and minorities represent the fastest-growing numbers of new AIDS cases, according to the report. The Institute of Medicine says it would be much more effective to boost prevention efforts for mother-to-infant transmission and needle-exchange programs than the administration's current priorities.

The report authors prepared a draft plan which they say could cut HIV transmission rates in half within five years if it were fully instituted by the Department of Health and Human Services.

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