Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Wednesday September 27, 2000
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Writer
While the spread of AIDS among gay men has declined over the last 15 years, there has been an increase among women, minorities and adolescents, according to the report from the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences.
There have also been recent reports of an increase in risky behavior by men who have sex with men.
"Thousands of new HIV infections could be avoided each year if we gave greater emphasis to prevention, and were smarter in the way we spent our prevention dollars," said Harvey Feinberg, provost of Harvard University and co-chairman of the committee that prepared the report. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
Feinberg warned that improved treatments for the disease have allowed people to become complacent.
"The need for prevention has not diminished one bit," he said.
The current tracking system does not provide a complete and accurate picture of how widespread HIV infection is, the report said. It called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a system to identify new HIV infections. It can take years for AIDS to develop after infection.
The report also stressed the need for increased prevention programs and was critical of federal spending of $250 million to promote abstinence "without any evidence that this approach is effective."
Instead, the report said, comprehensive sex education and condom availability "have been shown to reduce the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases without promoting sexual activity."
It also called for a lifting of legal barriers to programs that supply clean needles to drug addicts, as HIV is often spread by needle reuse.
The National Academy of Sciences is an independent organization chartered by Congress to provide advice to the government on scientific topics. This report was requested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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