Axios

Deaths resulting from violence in the Middle East grew 850% between 1990 and 2015, according to reports published this week in the International Journal of Public Health. They also found this coincided with a dramatic increase in chronic diseases, per Nature:

• The death rate from diabetes grew 216% over the study period, an increase of 179% compared to the 1990 level.
• The leading cause of death in the region is cardiovascular disease, weighing in at 34% of all deaths in the region. That same figure was 30% in 1990.
• There was an increase by 1,027% in deaths from war, terrorism, and state punishment for crimes.
• Homicide and death from physical and sexual assault increased in the region to 5.7 people per 100,000 (2015). For context, not that's lower than figures in the Americas or Africa.

Why it's happening: Stresses on mental health have a strong link to diabetes and cardiovascular disease, Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Nature.

A retired Virginia Beach attorney is so angry that Republicans failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act that he's suing the GOP for raising millions of dollars campaigning on a pledge that they knew they wouldn't be able to fulfill, per The Virginian-Pilot. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Thursday by 70-year-old Bob Heghmann.

• It claims that the GOP "has been engaged in a pattern of Racketeering which involves massive fraud perpetrated on Republican voters and contributors as well as some Independents and Democrats."
• Heghmann said he wants Republicans to either give campaign donors their money back or ramp up pressure on lawmakers to repeal the law.
• Why it matters: Not every Republican donor is going to sue for their money back, of course. But the lawsuit speaks to a real danger for Republicans: Other donors may stop giving money.

The Food and Drug Administration gave the green light Thursday to Mavyret, a hepatitis C drug made by AbbVie. Mavyret's list price is $26,400 for an eight-week treatment, the most common, and $39,600 for 12 weeks, an AbbVie spokesperson told Axios.

Why it matters: AbbVie's latest hepatitis C drug is a lot cheaper than Harvoni, the dominant hepatitis C medication made by Gilead Sciences. Harvoni retails for about $63,000 for eight weeks, although Gilead gets only about half of that after rebates and discounts. Even still, the lower-cost Mavyret could force pharmacy benefit managers and health insurers to consider putting it on their preferred drug lists in addition to, or instead of, Gilead's drugs.

Aetna's stock traded higher Thursday after the health insurer raked in immense second-quarter profits and raised expectations for the rest of the year.

Aetna's Q2 numbers: Net profit climbed 52% year over year to $1.2 billion. Revenue dropped slightly to $15.5 billion. Aetna also collected more premiums from Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs than commercial, job-based programs for the second straight quarter.

The big picture: UnitedHealth Group, Anthem, Humana and now Aetna each blew away Wall Street's profit projections this quarter, providing further proof that the largest health insurance companies are arguably the strongest they've ever been. It's also worth noting that those four insurers either exited or scaled back participation in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and they benefited from the suspension of the ACA's health insurance tax.