Bangkok, Thailand ? U.S. AIDS official Randall Tobias on Wednesday rejected a plea from the United Nations that the United States increase its yearly contribution of the Global Fund to $1 billion, saying, “It’s not going to happen.”

Tobias said that so far the bulk of the money collected by the Global Fund for Fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was “sitting in the World Bank in Geneva.”

He said U.S. money should be focused instead on the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, because “we need to get that money to work” and the program was the fastest way to do so.

Tobias rejected the request from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan shortly after speaking in a special session of the 15th International AIDS Conference in which he made a strong defense of U.S. AIDS policy.

The United States has been under repeated attack this week from both activists and world leaders, such as Annan and French President Jacques Chirac, who have claimed that America is not contributing its fair share to the global anti-AIDS effort. They also have said U.S. policy is putting too much emphasis on abstinence instead of condoms and blocking Third World countries from producing their own versions of drugs patented by major pharmaceutical companies.

Tobias’ speech was delayed for more than 10 minutes by activists holding posters shouting: “He’s lying, millions dying.”

In his address, Tobias noted that the United States would spend $2.4 billion this year fighting AIDS, “nearly twice as much as the rest of the world’s donor governments combined.”

He urged both the activists and meeting attendees to stop focusing on what they thought the U.S. positions on condoms and drug patents were and begin working together to solve the AIDS problem.

“HIV/AIDS is the real enemy. The denial, stigma and complacency that fuel HIV/AIDS — these are real enemies too. It is morally imperative that we direct our energies at these enemies, not at one another,” he said.

“Preventing AIDS is not a multiple-choice test,” he added. “Abstinence works. Being faithful works. Condoms work. Each has its place.”

Speaking to a group of editorial writers and reporters after his speech, Tobias noted that the United States was “buying more condoms than at any time in history. … If there are people who want to attribute some motive to us other than good science, be my guest.”

Tobias noted that the United States planned to donate $200 million to the Global Fund next year, “but it will not be spent.” Instead, the fund would bank the money until it had accumulated enough to ensure that any program it begins will be carried to completion.

That is a laudable goal, Tobias said, “but to send them any more money is not going to help people. There is an emergency here. To put more money in the Global Fund will actually slow down” the fight against AIDS.

He also defended the U.S. position of expending funds only on AIDS drugs that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “We need to know that the drugs act in the same way” as brand-name drugs, he said. “It would be irresponsible to do anything else.”