The WHO Says to Expect a Lot More Cancer; Downsides of Using AI in Health Care–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 9, 2026

Indy Digest: July 9, 2026

Cancer has played a major role in my life.

Knock on wood, I haven’t dealt with cancer in my own body—other than a pre-cancerous mole that I had in middle school, which has led me to avoid prolonged sunlight exposure as much as I can—but, like many people, it’s been a near-constant specter swirling around me. (Sadly, I know many of you can relate.) Throughout my adult life, my father battled a couple of different types of cancer, until lung cancer finally claimed him in 2012. Several of my dearest friends have died of cancer.

And given my family history, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before I do have to deal with it in my own body, in one way or another.

Because of all this, my heart sunk when I saw this Washington Post headline yesterday: “Cancer cases worldwide are expected to soar in the coming decades, a report finds. Here’s why.” It focused on a sobering new World Health Organization report.

Here’s the lede of that Washington Post piece:

Annual cancer cases are projected to rise considerably worldwide by 2050, according to a World Health Organization report on cancer published Wednesday. With its assessment, the United Nations body tempered optimism about improvements in cancer surveillance and treatment and warned that global health care inequities are driving further cases and deaths.

Around 20.6 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2024, according to the findings. That number could reach 35 million a year by 2050.

The new cases will disproportionately appear in lower-income countries with poorer access to cancer surveillance and treatment, according to the report.

The news is not all bad—it’s just mostly bad. The piece goes on to say.

The WHO projects that cancer incidence will increase by around 67 percent globally by 2050. That’s in line with predictions made in other recent reports.

The reasons for the increasing cancer rates are complex. Two key drivers the WHO’s report highlights are exposure to known risk factors, such as smoking and alcohol, and an aging population.

Experts have also cited improvements in cancer surveillance, which has allowed doctors to detect and diagnose more cancers than before.

In the United States, the rate of new cases has generally been stable in recent years, according to the National Institutes of Health. The WHO report predicts that cancer rates will increase in all regions across the world, though the biggest increases are projected in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region.

One other bit of good news: Better treatments have helped more people survive cancer, for longer. But that also means a lot of people are enduring often painful and debilitating procedures.

I avoid profanities in this newsletter—the primary reason being that spam filters tend to dislike swear words—but I make one exception: Fuck cancer.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go apply some sunscreen.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Could a project to dim the sunlight reaching Earth lessen the effects of El Nino? Wired magazine reports: “The new study argues that deflecting solar energy could cool the ocean and help moderate El Niño events before they become too strong, staving off the worst impacts. ‘El Niño is one of these things where something happens in the tropical Pacific, and then it rearranges the way the entire global atmosphere is holding energy that year,’ says Katherine Ricke, a coauthor of the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances and a climate scientist at UC San Diego and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. ‘It’s an ultimate pressure point in the climate system.’ Ricke and her coauthors looked at using marine cloud brightening, or MCB, as a way to dim the sun in the Pacific. The technique entails spraying seawater into marine clouds to enhance the clouds’ reflectivity. While some pilot projects and randomized controlled trials have tested the technique’s efficacy, they’ve only been on very small scales.”

• This Washington Post headline drives me crazy in myriad ways: “Rubio tries to enlist other nations in antifa fight, but some allies recoil.” Details (gift link): “Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invited senior ministers from more than 60 countries to a meeting next week about what the Trump administration views as a major peril: the ‘resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism,’ according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The meeting has prompted consternation among career and political U.S. officials, some European allies and independent analysts who do not see the threat in the same terms. Some U.S. officials told The Post that they worry it is part of a Trump administration effort to use powerful counterterrorism tools to crack down on U.S. activists they view as left-wing extremists. The administration’s counterterrorism czar, Sebastian Gorka, has had discussions with colleagues about using foreign terrorism labels for antifa to justify going after Americans with links to the movement, a loosely knit association of far-left activists who militantly oppose fascism and right-wing ideologies, three current and former U.S. officials said.” “Antifa” = anti-fascism. Sigh.

• Speaking of alternative realities … The New York Times reports on J.D. Vance speaking out against fraud … and blaming Democrats, of course. There’s just one problem (gift link): “Vice President JD Vance took his anti-fraud efforts to Wisconsin on Wednesday, raising the specter of widespread waste and highlighting an investigation that began during the Biden presidency as proof that the Trump administration was working to root out abuse. Even as Mr. Vance portrayed the initiatives as successful and substantive policy, he also used them as a partisan cudgel. Highlighting examples of fraud committed over the course of several years—and accusing Democrats turning a blind eye to it—has become a primary political strategy for Mr. Vance and a slate of Republican candidates as the midterm elections draw nearer. … Midway through his 37-minute appearance, Mr. Vance held up a large poster of Markita Barnes, a woman in Wisconsin who was convicted in March on 10 counts of health care fraud for stealing $2.3 million from a Medicaid benefit program meant to help at-risk pregnant women and women with young children. Ms. Barnes was initially indicted in 2023, during the Biden administration, but in his remarks, Mr. Vance accused Democrats of defending her.” Initially indicted in 2023, during the Biden administration …

• We’ve heard a lot about AI being an effective tool in improving health care. However, some Kaiser nurses say the opposite is happening, too, as reported by our partners at Calmatters: “Kaiser Permanente nurses who answer advice and triage calls say their duty of care for patients is being increasingly threatened by workplace surveillance. Seven current and former nurses told CalMatters that those who spend more than 15 minutes on a call with a patient routinely face criticism from Kaiser management or get called into performance evaluation meetings. Call time, they said, factors into monthly performance scores they receive. In addition to tracking call length, they said Kaiser uses software that tries to predict on a daily basis whether they’re being unproductive or failing to answer calls quickly. Artificial intelligence systems have also been used to rate their empathy and tone of voice. Their comments come as the California Nurses Association begins negotiating a new contract with Kaiser this month with AI a likely issue.”

• Today’s recall news involves … eye drops! The Hill explains: “Millions of bottles of eye drop medication widely used to treat allergies and inflammation have been recalled across the country, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Prednisolone Acetate Ophthalmic Suspension eye drops were recalled due to the potential presence of a foreign substance, according to the recall notice.  Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc., the manufacturer of the prescription drug, is voluntarily recalling more than 2.5 million bottles of its product. ‘Prednisolone is a steroid medicine that is used to relieve the redness, itching, and swelling caused by eye infections and other conditions,’ reads a description of the medication from the Mayo Clinic. ‘This medicine is available only with your doctor’s prescription.’”

• And finally … let’s turn to U.K. politics, and I swear this is a real headline from CNN: “Farage left fighting a trash can as the UK populist leader’s election gamble backfires.” Details: “When British right-wing populist leader Nigel Farage announced he was resigning as a lawmaker and triggering a special election in the face of a swirl of allegations over personal financing, he sought the high ground, declaring that the ‘judges of my actions’ should be his constituents. Instead, rival parties dismissed his actions as a stunt and said they would sit out the election, leaving his principal opponent as a garbage-can wearing comedian whose policies include forcing rule-breaking cyclists to ride unicycles. … Binface, a creation of the scriptwriter and comedian Jon Harvey, has been putting himself forward in British elections for years. He is part of a long tradition in the UK of satirical candidates who stand against prominent politicians as a way of drawing attention to their absurdities, or simply as a publicity stunt. Binface, whose character and costume have become more elaborate over time, has become the best known of the genre. ‘Game on, Nige,’ Binface posted on X, a platform where he has more than 200,000 followers, after Farage stepped down.“

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