Development and implementation of clean cooking technology for households in low and middle income countries (LMICs) offer enormous promise to advance at least five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 3. Good health and well-being; 5. Gender equality; 7. Affordable and clean energy; 13. Climate action; 15. Life on land. Programs are being implemented around the world to introduce alternative cooking technologies, and we are well on the way to achieving the goal set by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to reach 100 million homes with cleaner and more efficient cooking methods by 2020. Despite evidence that household air pollution (HAP) from solid fuel combustion is responsible for 3-4 million early deaths per year, many cookstove programs are motivated and/or financed by climate change mitigation schemes and deploy alternative stoves that use solid fuels such as wood and charcoal. However, recent studies have demonstrated that improved biomass-burning stoves typically only incrementally improve air quality and yield modest or minimal health benefits. Likewise, their contributions to climate change mitigation and other SDGs may be limited. Evidence indicates that cleaner fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ethanol and biogas, offer greater potential benefits not only to health, but also greater progress towards climate goals and other relevant SDGs. We present a modeled estimate of these potential gains for a diverse group of 40 LMICs. Our model suggests that cookstove programs using LPG stoves and fuel will yield greater reductions in both Disability Adjusted Life Years and Global Warming Commitment in these countries than those using improved biomass stoves. Cost and infrastructure requirements for clean fuels such as LPG are widely recognized constraints. In view of these constraints we present an analytical method to simultaneously consider health and climate needs at the national level for the same 40 countries in the context of estimated LPG expansion potentials. Comparative analyses integrating priorities across SDGs at the national and regional levels may guide more practical and effective household energy development choices going forward.

Figure 1. Key dimensions and factors for LPG scaling up and sustained adoption.

Our ability to predict the effects of climate change on the spread of infectious diseases is in its infancy. Numerous, and in some cases conflicting, predictions have been developed, principally based on models of biological processes or mapping of current and historical disease statistics. Current debates on whether climate change, relative to socioeconomic determinants, will be a major influence on human disease distributions are useful to help identify research needs but are probably artificially polarized. We have at least identified many of the critical geophysical constraints, transport opportunities, biotic requirements for some disease systems, and some of the socioeconomic factors that govern the process of migration and establishment of parasites and pathogens. Furthermore, we are beginning to develop a mechanistic understanding of many of these variables at specific sites. Better predictive understanding will emerge in the coming years from analyses regarding how these variables interact with each other.

The discovery and development of novel, biologically active agents from natural sources, whether they be drugs, agrochemicals or other bioactive entities, involve a high level of interdisciplinary as well as international collaboration. Such collaboration, particularly at the international level, requires the careful negotiation of collaborative agreements protecting the rights of all parties, with special attention being paid to the rights of host (source) country governments, communities and scientific organizations. While many biodiversity-rich source countries currently might not have the necessary resources for in-country drug discovery and advanced development, they provide valuable opportunities for collaboration in this endeavor with research organizations from more high-income nations. This chapter discusses the experiences of the US National Cancer Institute and the US government-sponsored International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups program in the establishment of international agreements in the context of the Convention of Biological Diversity's objectives of promoting fair and equitable collaboration with multiple parties in many countries, and includes some specific lessons of value in developing such collaborations.

To describe the technique and results of minimal access parathyroidectomy using the focused lateral approach (FLA) under local anesthesia with intravenous sedation for excision of posteriorly located parathyroid glands. Design: Review of medical records from a prospectively obtained database of patients.

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By using a targeted approach, MIP can be safely performed under local anesthesia in appropriately selected patients.

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