Last week, the Advocate reported on a study of female condoms by The Institute for Community Research that has shown the difficulties high-risk women have getting the condoms to protect themselves from HIV infection. Female condoms are expensive, and generally unavailable.

There's also a prejudice against the condoms among many women, who find the polyurethane shields difficult to use.

Seven years ago, the institute conducted another study on a different product — microbicides. Under development for nearly 20 years, microbicides are gels or creams applied vaginally that kill microbes transmitted during sexual intercourse, including the HIV virus.

Before you get too excited, bear in mind that while there are ongoing clinical trials, microbicides are not yet commercially available, and they're only 48 to 60 percent effective. Female condoms are 98 percent effective and have been available since 1993.

Yet there are some obvious advantages to microbicides, including ease of use, which may explain why Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, introduced The Microbicide Development Act of 2007 last year on International Women's Day, March 8.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT, and introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Chris Shays, R-CT, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, requires the federal government to get its act together.

Right now, three federal agencies are researching microbicides — the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The NIH is the big dog of the bunch, with the most federal dollars to spend. Yet even at the NIH, microbicide research is conducted willy nilly, with "no single line of administrative accountability," according to the nonprofit Global Campaign for Microbicides.

"Without overall federal coordination of the type required by the [Microbicide Development Act], costly inefficiencies and unproductive duplication of effort may result," states the Global Campaign on its Web site.

And if inefficiencies are a problem, they are a growing problem. In 1997, the federal government committed $26.7 million to developing microbicides. This year, we're expected to spend $144 million.

The act would establish a dedicated microbicide unit within the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and authorize funding increases as needed at the CDC, NIH and USAID, requiring those agencies to work with each other.

ICR's Hartford study showed women would use microbicides if they were available. Women participating in the study were given an over-the-counter vaginal moisturizer to simulate microbicides, and were told to insist their partners use condoms.

It was essentially role-playing in real life, said ICR Executive Director Margaret Weeks, showing microbicides were easy to use, and "didn't create any significant problems in all kinds of circumstances, even with paying partners."

But what about the marginal efficacy of microbicides? Millions of women will still avoid HIV infection, according to the Global Campaign for Microbicides.

"Even at that low level of effectiveness, it's really amazing how many infections will be prevented," said Maryann Abbot, an ICR project director who ran the microbicide study.