Penn | Center for Bioethics

News Archive

February 9, 2012
Survey shows where doctors shade the truth
(From The Boston Globe) The 2009 survey... shows that many doctors do not adhere to the standards of medical societies and accreditation groups...
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“I was disappointed to see so many doctors not disclosing errors,’’ said Arthur Caplan... Read more...

February 5, 2012
Five years after HPV vaccine law, state remains split
(From The Virginian-Pilot) In 2007, Virginia became the first state in the country to pass a school mandate for rising sixth-grade girls to receive the vaccine.
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Caplan... said he thinks school mandates for the HPV vaccine were pushed too hard, too soon. Read more...

February 4, 2012
Arguments Against the Komen Decision to Defund Planned Parenthood
(From The Daily Beast) When the Komen Foundation defunded its cancer-screening grants for Planned Parenthood, the response was both swift and fierce...
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Art Caplan says the decision to defund Planned Parenthood, though short-lived, has irreparably harmed the organization. Read more...

February 3, 2012
Komen's reversal
(From ABC) Critics of the original decision [to cut funding to Planned Parenthood] said that Komen was buckling to anti-abortion forces...
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Should the people at Komen who made this decision resign? There are some who say they should, including... Dr. Art Caplan. Read more...

February 3, 2012
Might be too little, too late for Komen, bioethicist says
(From MSNBC) When the organization chose to cut funding to Planned Parenthood that paid for breast cancer screenings, it planted itself clumsily and unnecessarily in the middle of America’s wars over abortion...
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The entire executive leadership and board must resign. Read more...

February 1, 2012
Defective Birth Control Could Spur Big Lawsuits for Pfizer
(From MyHealthNewsDaily) It's possible that women who become pregnant after taking the defective birth control pills Pfizer recalled today (Feb. 1) could sue the drug company for unwanted pregnancies...
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Others may not want to argue in court that they would be better off without their child, [Caplan] said. Read more...

February 1, 2012
Regulate sugar like booze and cigarettes? Maybe
(From MSNBC) In the latest issue of the journal Nature, [UCSF researchers] argue that the government should start nudging you off your sugar high.
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Are they on the right track? Partly. Read more...

January 31, 2012
Parents: Mentally disabled girl, 3, might be eligible for life-saving transplant after denial
(From The Washington Post) The Stratford, N.J., family said doctors initially told them their daughter wasn’t eligible for a transplant because of her quality of life and her mental condition.
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“Outside of severe mental impairment, I don’t think it should count,” [Caplan] said. Read more...

January 31, 2012
Should People Know About the Results of Their Genome Screening?
(From ABC) If you were at higher risk for developing a condition like Alzheimer's disease or breast cancer, would you want to know about it?
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Caplan explained that there are a number of ethical challenges posed by genetic testing. Read more...

January 30, 2012
No transplant for dying dad who is illegal immigrant
(From Mercury News) The Oakland man has a willing donor and private insurance to pay for the transplant.
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It is the kind of ethical gray area that hospitals hate, said University of Pennsylvania bioethics professor Arthur Caplan. Read more...

January 27, 2012
Use of Actors, Photoshop Not OK in Health Ads, Experts Say
(From My Health News Daily) Is it wrong to misrepresent an individual's story to get a do-good message across?
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"You should not urge people to do things that you yourself do not do, or do not believe in--that harms public trust, which is a key component of public health initiatives," Caplan said. Read more...

January 25, 2012
Physician Authority and Health Care Reform
(From JAMA) Will health care reform restrict or enhance physician autonomy?
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The expansion of physician autonomy catalyzed by the ACA will not happen on its own. Physicians need to be proactive. Read more...

January 23, 2012
Paula Deen & company: 10 celebs who help sell drugs
(From CBS) Since Paula Deen announced she has Type 2 diabetes, she's been a lightning rod for criticism from fellow celebrity chefs, medical experts, and her fans.
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Caplan wondered about celebrities, "Why would we put trust in what they have to say about drugs, devices, or vaccines?" Read more...

January 23, 2012
The Unreal World: OR secrets in 'Grey's Anatomy'
(From The LA Times) Doctors look at whether the scenarios of a dislodged screw, hidden identity, withheld news and a teen's decision are realistic.
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Caplan says that there's "no harm" in waiting to deliver tragic personal news to a surgeon. Read more...

January 19, 2012
Sterilization, forced abortion are never the answer
(From MSNBC) A 32-year-old pregnant woman from Massachusetts... suffers from severe schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder.
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Whatever needs to be done to help Moe, it is not sterilizing her. Read more...

January 18, 2012
Editorial: Paula Deen--the stew over a butter queen's diabetes
(From The Star-Tribune) [T]he TV chef’s announcement that she has Type II diabetes...has whipped up a big batch of not entirely unjustified schadenfreude this week.
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Their criticism of Deen’s deal to serve as a diabetes drug pitchwoman isn’t half-baked. Read more...

January 18, 2012
Diagnosing Disease On A 'Postage Stamp'
(From WGBH) Imagine spitting on paper and finding out within moments if the medicine you’ve been taking is causing liver damage.
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Caplan supported making tests affordable and easy-to-use for resource-poor countries but believed things could potentially get ugly. Read more...

January 18, 2012
The Bioethics of Denying Patients Organ Transplants
(From NPR) Three-year-old Amelia Rivera has a rare genetic disease called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome.
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"[T]here are reasons where mental impairment and associated problems can make a transplant really tough to do." Read more...

January 18, 2012
NJ parents of mentally disabled girl say transplant dispute may be with 1 doctor not hospital
(From The Washington Post) Children’s Hospital said in a statement that it “does not disqualify potential transplant candidates on the basis of intellectual abilities.”
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The supply of organs for child transplants is “extremely limited,” Caplan added. "So you have hard choices to make," he said. Read more...

January 18, 2012
Mom: Transplant denied due to "mental retardation"
(From ABC) "[The doctor] had told us she wasn't eligible for a transplant because of her 'mental retardation,' was the word he used," Chrissy [Rivera] said.
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"If [intellectual disability] is all that is being taken into account, that's bias..." Caplan said. Read more...

January 17, 2012
A Sperm Donor's Future?
(From AndersonCooper.com) Trent, an "Anderson" guest who donates sperm to help couples build families, may have good intentions, but Art Caplan, a medical bioethicist, says that his altruistic ideals could backfire in the future. Read more...

January 17, 2012
Denying an organ to a 'mentally retarded' child
(From The Washington Post) Intellectual disabilities are sometimes considered a reason to deny a child a transplant organ.
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Of all the considerations Caplan said are ethically valid, intellectual abilities alone were not among them. Read more...

January 17, 2012
Bioethicist: Transplant denial for mentally disabled child raises questions
(From MSNBC) [Amelia Rivera's] parents have been told by her doctor and social worker that she would not be a candidate for a [kidney] transplant because of her mental disability...
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The issue of disability and access to a life-saving transplant merits serious reflection. Read more...

January 11, 2012
Stem-cell research: Never say die
(From nature) With a history of public blunders, can Advanced Cell Technology make embryonic stem-cell therapies a reality?
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“Can you really trust a company that has a spotty record?” says Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Read more...

January 11, 2012
Before you buy that defibrillator...
(From philly.com) Should every apartment building and condominium complex buy a defibrillator?
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The usefulness of automated external defibrillators depends on the location and the people living there. Read more...

January 11, 2012
New Genome Decoder Holds Promise, Raises Ethics Questions
(From Radio Free Europe) The desktop device... is the first to offer affordable genome decoding.
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Arthur Caplan... says foremost among [ethical concerns] is the issue of personal privacy. Read more...

January 10, 2012
Will knowing your DNA motivate you to lose weight?
(From MSNBC) Ion Torrent [claims] that a reasonably affordable machine capable of mapping an individual’s complete genetic makeup for $1,000 will be ready by the end of the year.
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We still don’t know all the significance of small variations in genes for health. Read more...

January 9, 2012
A final reason to lose weight
(From MSNBC) Those who are grossly overweight often feel guilty about many things. Now, add one more to the list: Their weight even gets in the way of helping others after their death by donating their bodies... Read more...

January 6, 2012
Germany, UK weigh in on French breast implant concern
(From CNN) CNN's Max Foster talks to bioethicist Arthur Caplan about the defective breast implants used around the world.
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" The company is the number one responsible party. They made the faulty product..." Read more...

January 5, 2012
Congratulations to Center Associate Fellow, Jason Schwartz
Jason Schwartz has been named the Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioethics at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, beginning September 1, 2012. Its founding director was current Penn President Amy Gutmann. Read more...

January 4, 2012
Going Too Far To Find Egg Donors, Surrogates?
(From NBC) A local businesswoman is so desperate to find women willing to donate their eggs or carry a surrogate pregnancy -- that she reached out to NBC10 for help.
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"These are major decisions that shouldn't be treated in this kind of trivial way. " Read more...

January 4, 2012
For Santorum, It's Values Versus Innovation
(From The Huffington Post) [Santorum] is both culturally conservative and aggressive about government's role in bucking up American industry... However, these dual concerns -- conservative moral values along with investment in innovation -- create interesting tensions for Santorum. Read more...

January 4, 2012
New HPV resource launched
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has launched a new website with information on preventing HPV. The site features a video of Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at CHOP. Read more...

January 2, 2012
It Costs More, but Is It Worth More?
(From The New York Times) If you want to know what is wrong with American health care today, exhibit A might be the two new proton beam treatment facilities the Mayo Clinic has begun building, one in Minnesota, the other in Arizona, at a cost of more than $180 million dollars each. Read more...

December 31, 2011
Many Pa. healthcare workers got flu shots
(From UPI) Pennsylvania health officials are recognizing healthcare facilities with staff flu vaccination rates of 90 percent or higher on an online honor roll.
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The partners include: ... the Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

Announcement and call for abstracts:
International Conference on Bioethics Education: Content, Methods, Trends
Tiberias, Israel | September 2-5, 2012
Read more...

December 27, 2011
Should scientists create deadly viruses? Yes, bioethicist says
(From MSNBC) The only way to... figure out ways to deal with horrors like flesh eating bacteria is to create and study them.
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The second question becomes the key one--who should have access to this knowledge? Read more...

December 22, 2011
Breakthrough of the year? AIDS discovery could put virus on the run, bioethicist says
(From msnbc) A clinical trial involving AIDS this year is rightly being called by Science magazine the most important scientific breakthrough of the year.
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[R]esearchers convincingly showed that people who take antiretrovirals... are far less likely to sexually infect their non-HIV positive wife or partner. Read more...

December 21, 2011
When censoring science makes sense
(From CNN) If there is one thing that scientists hate, it is any policy that restricts research in any way.
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Once in a long while, however, the price of the truth is simply too high to let scientists disclose their findings publicly. Read more...

December 20, 2011
Alliance for Aging Research Announces New Science Advisors
The Alliance for Aging Research has added new members to its Science Advisory Board including a prominent bioethicist...
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Arthur L. Caplan, PhD is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

December 20, 2011
Baby's rights under Medicaid
(From CNN) CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to bioethics expert Art Caplan about the case of baby Pierce's rare condition and surgery.
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"This is a baby and an infant so I think they have a special claim on resources..." Read more...

December 20, 2011
Father of many, daddy of none
(From SFGate) The 36-year-old Fremont man boasts that he has sired 14 babies - with four more in the oven - via a free sperm-donation service that he promotes on the Internet.
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"This is ethically despicable," said Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

December 20, 2011
Fertile sperm donor draws criticism from FDA, docs
(From seattle pi) At the time of the FDA letter, the Silicon Valley computer security specialist had made 328 sperm donations to 46 women...
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"Nobody should be involved as a sperm donor on that level. It's not safe." Read more...

December 19, 2011
Bioethicist: Slashing funds for clean needles is risky for the rest of us
(From msnbc.com) Republicans in Congress have decided that despite a veritable mountain of scientific evidence showing that needle-exchange work, they are not going to pay for this sort of program any more. Read more...

December 15, 2011
Going online for an organ donor
(From ABC) People in need of an organ transplant are, in some cases, turning to the internet these days hoping to find a donor.
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"[T]he more noisy wheels get the attention, but they may not be the neediest people for a kidney," Caplan tells Action News. Read more...

December 14, 2011
Stent committee member faces accusations
(From The Baltimore Sun) [A] Maryland Health Care Commission committee began developing safeguards to prevent [doctors from implanting unnecessary stents].
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Stents have "definitely become a legal target," said Arthur Caplan... Read more...

December 14, 2011
Woman gets kidney after posting Craigslist ad
(From msnbc.com) Selina Hodge, 28, posted her plea for a kidney donor in July, hoping someone -- anyone -- would come to her rescue.
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"Finding such a donor might be in your best interest, but it does not make this the right thing to do..." Read more...

Moreno's 'The Body Politic' named a 2011 Best Book
(From Kirkus Book Reviews) Congratulations to Jonathan Moreno, PhD, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of the University of Pennsylvania and author of 'The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America.' The book "presents a nuanced survey of the fraught politics of science in 21st-century America." Read more...

December 12, 2011
The Next Roe v. Wade?: Jennie McCormack's Abortion Battle
(From Newsweek) Jennie McCormack was arrested for terminating her pregnancy with an abortion pill.
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“But it’s [a case] that neither the pro-choice nor the pro-life people want to deal with." Read more...

December 7, 2011
Denying Girls Access to Morning-After Pill Puts Politics Ahead of Science
(From Gizmodo) Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is prohibiting teenagers younger than 17 from buying the morning-after pill over the counter.
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"I think the decision to overrule the FDA is a bad one," [says] Art Caplan. Read more...

December 7, 2011
Bioethicist: Plan B ruling trumps good science with bad policy
(From msnbc.com) The Department of Health and Human Services ... will not allow the pill to be sold over the counter in drugstores unless a woman can prove she is older than 17.
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Making Plan B hard to get doesn't protect these young girls. Read more...

December 5, 2011
Five-year-old's removal from family spotlights obesity intervention
(From CBS News) The child, who hailed from Tameside, Greater Manchester, reportedly weighed 60-pounds...
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[Caplan] said, "There's no evidence that foster care is cure for obesity." Read more...

December 4, 2011
Fed policy blocks many gays from donating blood
(From the Asbury Park Press) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibits men who have had sex with other men at any time since 1977 from ever donating blood.
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“It’s a policy that is poor and out of date relative to the science...” said Arthur Caplan. Read more...

December 2, 2011
HIV-Positive Boy Talks of Being Denied Entry to Hershey School
(From abcNews) A 13-year-old boy who applied to a Hershey, Pa., boarding school told ABC News that it never crossed his mind he would be denied entry because he was HIV-positive.
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The idea that anyone could be denied entry based on a disability is astounding, said Arthur Caplan. Read more...

December 1, 2011
Court: some bone marrow donors can be paid
(From ajc.com) In its ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a technological breakthrough makes donating bone marrow a process nearly identical to giving blood plasma.
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Caplan said the ruling Thursday may unintentionally support campaigns to pay donors in other medical fields... Read more...

December 1, 2011
Bioethicist: Shame on school for rejecting boy with HIV
(From msnbc.com) A private high school in Pennsylvania refuses to admit a 13-year-old honor student who is HIV positive.
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" Shame on the Milton Hershey School for denying this kid the chance the school has given to so many others..." Read more...

December 1, 2011
Dentist Threatens to Sue Patient for Negative Yelp Review
(From abcNews) “We are now seeking a declaratory judgment from the judge to show that my client was not doing anything wrong,” said [the patient's lawyer].
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“This is a form of bullying...” said Arthur Caplan... Read more...

November 30, 2011
Should Obese Children Be Removed From Their Homes?
(From npr) The question is whether or not foster care is really the best way to solve extreme obesity.
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Dr. Art Caplan is bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. He talks about the case along with child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Joan Kinlan. Read more...

November 28, 2011
Doctor and Patient, Bound by Mutual Dependency
(From The New York Times) The relationship between doctor and patient is hard enough to parse... [F]ew efforts in recent memory lay out the frustrations and confusions and crystalline moments of grace better than Dr. Jason Karlawish’s marvelous new book “Open Wound.” Read more...

November 27, 2011
Officials wrong to take 200-pound boy from mom, ethicist says
(From msnbc.com) An 8-year-old Ohio boy weighing 200 pounds was taken from his family last month and put into foster care...
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"Moving kids out of the home is wrenching for them, they're going to live with strangers. You're creating emotional turmoil." Read more...

November 21, 2011
Growing Number of Mothers Participating in Clinical Trials to Make Ends Meet
(From abcNews) Yvette Santana...is one of a growing number of mothers who participate in clinical trials to make extra money.
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"Don't think that being seen by clinical trial technicians is a substitute for health care." Read more...

November 20, 2011
Stem Cell Tales from the Crypt
(From Science Progress) The general theme of the conference was “can religion and science ever get along?” Specifically, can stem cell research proceed with the blessing of religion? The Roman Catholic Church thinks so. Read more...

November 18, 2011
Hope gone for last-ditch cancer drug, but don't deny access
(From msnbc.com) What should someone dying of cancer do when the last-ditch drug that they have relied upon is shown not to work?
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Still, many women with no other option will want to give Avastin a try. Read more...

November 17, 2011
A Money-Back Guarantee on a Cancer Drug
(From Businessweek) Roche Holding is resorting to a radical new protocol to reverse a slump in sales of its blockbuster cancer therapy Avastin.
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Such deals may be attractive to insurers, but Arthur L. Caplan... calls them bad medicine. Read more...

November 16, 2011
Scientists Will Test Extreme Hypothermia on Pittsburgh Trauma Patients
(From ABC News) By inducing hypothermia in these patients, doctors hope to buy time to repair their wounds.
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Dr. Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said... it raises a number of inescapable ethical issues... Read more...

November 15, 2011
Webinar: Understanding Vaccines
(From the National Press Foundation) David Curry clarifies how vaccines work, how they differ from each other and what's reasonable to expect from a new vaccine.
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In the first of our three-part webinar series, we lay the groundwork for understanding the exquisite science and persistent challenges of vaccine development. Read more...

November 14, 2011
Deep-Chilling Trauma Patients To Try To Save Them
(From npr) Putting them into extreme hypothermia just might allow them to survive without brain damage for about an hour so surgeons can do their work.
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If the dramatic approach works, it will spur some rethinking about that line between life and death, says Dr. Arthur Caplan. Read more...

November 14, 2011
The Unreal World: 'The Skin I Live In'
(From the Los Angeles Times) Is it possible to use animal genes to create improved human organs, including skin?
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Arthur Caplan... says that skin-grafting is ethically different than transplanting pig or bovine valves. Read more...

November 13, 2011
Opinion: Vatican push for adult stem cells can't neglect good science
(From msnbc.com) [C]an stem cell research proceed with the blessing of religion?
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In an unprecedented and truly startling move, the Catholic Church has answered yes. Read more...

November 10, 2011
The "Lower-Profile, Higher-Educated Emanuel" Brother Comes to Penn
(From the Pennsylvania Gazette) Emanuel...is perhaps known as much for his seemingly limitless energy as for his achievements in bioethics and health care.
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“He’s got an unbounded reservoir of energy,” says Arthur Caplan. Read more...

November 7, 2011
Opinion: Human rights for embryos? Initiative at odds with science
(From msnbc.com) Fertilized eggs could be granted human rights, depending on how Mississippi voters cast their ballots Tuesday on Initiative 26.
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But it is not true that all fertilized eggs can or do produce human beings. Read more...

November 7, 2011
Why polio persists
(From thestar.com) Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India are the world’s last endemic countries, according to the World Health Organization.
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“It’s going to cost a huge amount of money to finish the job,” said Arthur Caplan. Read more...

November 3, 2011
Less Than $26 Billion? Don't Bother
(From the New York Times) In health care, you have to be talking about tens of billions of dollars before you are talking about real money.
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There are some savings in medical malpractice, drug costs, insurance company profits and "million dollar babies," but not nearly enough. Read more...

Job Announcements:
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
The Commission advises the President on bioethical issues that may emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. Applications will be accepted through November 15, 2011. Read more...

Event: Head Injuries in Sports: Care, Conflict and Controversy
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City. Read more...

November 1, 2011
Debate: Should Parents Lose Custody If Their Children Are Obese?
(From Fox News) Childhood obesity is now being used as a factor in determining custody in some divorce cases.
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Caplan argued that advertisements are one of the biggest factors playing into childhood obesity... Read more...

November 1, 2011
Should the New Anthrax Vaccine Be Tested on Children?
(From Science Progress) How worried are you about an anthrax attack on your family?
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[F]ew [parents] will bring their kids in to act as subjects in what amounts to a safety study. Read more...

October 27, 2011
NYC man pleads guilty to kidney trafficking
(From the Miami Herald) Levy Izhak Rosenbaum admitted in federal court in Trenton that he had brokered three illegal kidney transplants
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"Internationally, about one quarter of all kidneys appear to be trafficked," Caplan said. Read more...

October 25, 2011
Flu shot not as effective as thought (but get one anyway)
(From msnbc.com) Overall, flu shots in adults 18 to 65 are 59 percent effective, the scientists estimate.
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"It would be ironic if people decided not to get a flu shot because, though 59 percent effective, it’s not as effective as previously thought," Caplan says. Read more...

October 25, 2011
Obama administration considering whether to test anthrax vaccine on children
(From PRI) BioThrax has been tested and proven effective in adults...
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"While vaccines are very, very safe, when you're testing in a new population there's always some risks." Read more...

October 23, 2011
Vatican Conference on Stem Cells Will Focus on Ethical Science
(From the National Catholic Register) A Vatican conference next month could help influence public figures to get behind adult stem-cell research.
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The gathering will feature ...Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, and others. Read more...

October 23, 2011
Immunize thyself
(From the Cape Breton Post) [T]he chief public health officer for Nova Scotia, said recently it’s not time to make the flu shot mandatory for health-care workers.
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"[Anyone] who has regular contact with patients ought to be required to get a flu shot or find another line of work," wrote Caplan. Read more...

The ScattergoodEthics Program presents:
Ethical Issues in Forensic Psychiatry: Minimizing Harm
Please join Robert Sadoff, MD as he discusses his new book on November 1. His presentation will be followed by light refreshments. RSVPs are required for this free event. Read more...

October 20, 2011
Know what you're eating? Not if food industry has its way
(From msnbc.com) Do you have the right to know what you’re eating? The food industry apparently doesn’t think so.
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The industry ought to embrace what consumers need and want--simple facts about their food. Read more...

October 20, 2011
Response to "Resisting the Needle"
(From BMJ) We read with distress verging on disbelief the recent Starting Out opinion piece by Dr. Kinesh Patel.
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The purpose of HCW vaccination is primarily to reduce the risk of debilitating and potentially fatal vaccine-preventable illness in vulnerable patients. Read more...

October 17, 2011
Sequenom to Sell Down Syndrome Test 2 Years After Pullback
(From Bloomberg) Sequenom Inq. said its prenatal test for Down syndrome will be available in 20 U.S. cities today
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"For many people this test makes it morally, emotionally and psychologically easier to have an abortion," Caplan said. Read more...

October 16, 2011
Claims that Jobs doomed himself based on gossip and guesses
(From msnbc.com) Commentary: "Tabloids and bloggers, citing cancer experts who never treated Jobs and have no access to his medical information, are speculating that Jobs “doomed” himself with alternative medicine." Read more...

October 14, 2011
The Ethics of Offering Money for Organ Transplants
(From NPR) Seth Godin wanted to help his friend and colleague Amit Gupta, who has leukemia, so he offered up a challenge...
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"There are really three key arguments here that get in the way of trying to get these people to come forward..."- special guest Arthur Caplan, PhD. Read more...

October 12, 2011
Call it what it is: Hate speech
(From the Chicago Tribune) Is hate speech really going to be given a serious place in American politics?
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Picking on someone as being "not religious enough" for high office... is intolerant bias. Read more...

October 10, 2011
Dallas pastor calls Mormonism a "cult"
(From CBS Minnesota) Is "Mormonism a cult?" Art Caplan discusses the lack of media attention or public outrage over obvious cases of religious bigotry in politics. Listen here...

October 10, 2011
Dead serious: Free funerals to boost organ donation?
(From NBC Today) Offering free funerals to people who donate... organs could help boost donation rates, an influential British medical ethics group says.
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"Associating free funerals with organ donation is an odd reward," said Art Caplan. Read more...

October 10, 2011
Keeping secrets from patients: A geneticist's burden
(From msnbc.com) Let’s say a scientist performed a test on you and found out that you were at risk of dying of a disease... Should you be told?
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Until it is confirmed, it’s very likely that more harm than good will be done by trying to warn people about suspicions and best guesses. Read more...

October 7, 2011
A Conversation With Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethicist and Professor
(From The Atlantic) His most recent project, the new book The Body Politic, explores how bioethical issues -- stem cells, genetics -- have become a part of our political discourse.
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"I'd suggest that there are two [innovations having a significant impact on bioethics]: globalization and neuroscience." Read more...

Event: Book Reading with Dr. Jason Karlawish
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia presents a book reading and discussion with Penn's Dr. Jason Karlawish, featuring his new novel: Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont. on Tuesday, November 1st at 6:30pm. Read more...

Event: Bioethics "Conversations" Series: The Body Politic
Please join Jonathan Moreno, PhD, in a discussion about his new book, The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America. The event will be held on December 13 at the Center for Bioethics. Read more...

October 3, 2011
Dr. Dustin Ballard: The good, bad, and ugly about vaccine news
(From the Marin Independent Journal) [T]he past few weeks have brought several related stories, which as a vaccine advocate, I would categorize as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
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"Vaccines do have risks as do every other health intervention... But, vaccines are among the safest and most effective tools we have to fight dread diseases."-Arthur Caplan. Read more...

October 3, 2011
Immunization Action Coalition: Honor Roll for Patient Safety
(From Immunize.org) The IAC is recognizing the stellar examples of influenza vaccination mandates in healthcare settings.
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"If you can get close to 100 percent vaccination rates [among healthcare workers], you can cut patient death rates from flu by 40 percent." Read more...

October 1, 2011
Time for a boycott of Chinese science and medicine pertaining to organ transplantation
(From The Lancet) It is clear... that not all of the organs for Chinese citizens and transplant tourists are provided by voluntary consenting donors.
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The time has come to bring normal scientific and medical interchange with China concerning transplantation to a halt. Read more...

September 29, 2011
Inspiring portrait of Down syndrome at odds with perfect baby pursuit
(From MSNBC) Researchers have created a remarkable portrait of life for those with Down syndrome--and the people who love them.
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Still... I don’t think [these findings] will make a bit of difference to parents deciding to end pregnancies once Down syndrome is discovered in a fetus. Read more...

September 25, 2011
Floyd man is fighting cancer on his own terms
(From The Roanoke Times) Abraham Cherrix's 2006 court battle prompted a law giving teenagers 14 or older and their parents the right to seek alternative medical treatments.
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"These types of cases have to be looked at on an individual basis," said Caplan... "Not all 14-year-olds have the same level of maturity." Read more...

September 22, 2011
Silence From Rep. Bachmann As Vaccine Challenge Expires
(From NPR) The high noon deadline for bioethicist Arthur Caplan's $10,000 challenge to Rep. Michele Bachmann has come and gone without a peep from the Republican presidential hopeful.
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"Politicians shouldn't get away with hearsay," he said. "We need to hold candidates responsible for their sources." Read more...

September 22, 2011
Bioethicist HPV Bet Ends Without Bachmann Acknowledgement
(From Bloomberg) Bioethicist Art Caplan said his challenge to Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann ...ended without Bachmann acknowledging it.
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He encouraged people to donate to the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Read more...

September 22, 2011
Caplan Issues Statement on Bachmann $10k Challenge
"Getting accurate information out about hpv and other vaccines is key to protecting lives and preventing disability and sickness. If you were one of many to volunteer money to me to support my challenge please consider giving a gift to the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia." From an email by Dr. Arthur Caplan

September 22, 2011
Penn Event: "Communicating Science"
(From the Philomathean Society) Since the mid-1800s, we have increasingly subscribed to the notion that the “scientifically proven” answer is the correct one. Why and how does this perception of science affect the communication of scientific ideas, and how does this affect the evolution of scientific thought? Fourth Floor College Hall, 6pm-7pm. Free and open to the public.

September 21, 2011
Fact-challenged Bachmann wisely chooses to shut up
(From The News Tribune) Dr. Steven Miles and Dr. Arthur Caplan are my new heroes. They should be yours, too-- if you hold the radical opinion that facts matter.
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When she found herself pilloried by doctors, pundits and even her own ideological soulmates, Bachmann responded that she wasn’t speaking as a doctor or scientist, but only as a mother. Read more...

September 20, 2011
Michele, My Warning Bell About Vaccine Fear-Mongering
(From The Hastings Center blog, Bioethics Forum) Part of the reason I was angry about Bachmann’s comments is that I have been working on vaccine ethics long enough to be acutely aware of the harm caused by vaccine misinformation... The need to speak from an ethical perspective in public forums and outlets about inaccurate, misleading, or outright false claims about bioethical issues should be self-evident. Read more...

September 19, 2011
Changes in controversial organ donation method stir fears
(From The Washington Post) The proposed changes... are part of the first major overhaul of the 2007 guidelines governing “donation after cardiac death”
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“It was always kind of confusing to say, ‘You have donation after cardiac death,’ because a dead heart can’t be transplanted,” said Arthur L. Caplan. Read more...

September 18, 2011
Penn professor presents Michele Bachmann with $10k challenge
(From The Daily Pennsylvanian) In response to Bachmann’s comments on the HPV vaccine, Penn bioethics professor Arthur Caplan challenged her in a tweet.
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“It’s time to demand better from our politicians,” he added. Read more...

September 16, 2011
Local Doctor Challenges Michele Bachmann's Stance On HPV Vaccines
(From CBS) Michele Bachmann said... that a woman approached her, and said her daughter suffered from mental retardation after getting the human papillomavirus vaccine.
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Caplan says the HPV vaccine is safe and saves thousands of lives each year. Read more...

September 15, 2011
"I'll Pay $10,000 if Bachmann Proves HPV Claim"
(From NBC) Dr. Arthur Caplan says he'll pay $10,000... if Bachmann can prove that the HPV vaccine led to a girl's mental retardation.
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"If you're going to be President, you've got to do better than to say 'Oh someone told me that maybe this has happened.'" Read more...

September 15, 2011
Caplan to Bachmann: Prove HPV Claim
(From CNN) Arthur Caplan says he'll give $10,000 to charity if Michele Bachmann can produce her HPV victim.
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"She's fear mongering, Anderson. There are about 4,000 women in the US who die every year of cervical cancer, 450,000 worldwide. She said in that clip and has said it a couple of times, 'You've got to take that into account, [the HPV] vaccine's dangerous.' That's completely inappropriate." Read more...

September 15, 2011
Bioethicist Offers $10,000 Reward For Proof of Bachmann Vaccine Claims
(From Forbes) Art Caplan is so confident that Michele Bachmann’s claim that a young girl was made mentally retarded by injections of the Gardasil vaccine ... is false that he is offering to donate $10,000 to the charity of Bachmann’s choice if she can produce such a patient.
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"If she can produce a case in one week starting today verified by three medical experts that she and I pick of a woman who became ‘retarded’ (her words) due to HPV vaccine I will donate that to a charity of her choice." Read more...

September 14, 2011
Noncompliant vs Noncooperative Patients: Treat Them Differently?
(From Medscape) "I am Art Caplan at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Today I would like to talk to you about the noncompliant patient, which raises lots of fascinating ethical challenges for doctors and other healthcare providers." Read more...

September 13, 2011
Should the HPV Vaccine Be Mandatory? Health Experts Weigh In
(From myhealthnewsdaily.com) "Should the HPV vaccine be mandatory for girls ages 11 to 12 in the United States? Why or why not?"
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Arthur Caplan, bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania: "Yes. The data show that the vaccine is safe and effective..." Read more...

September 13, 2011
HPV vaccine attack could harm 'innocent' girls
(From msnbc.com) GOP's Bachmann claims shot to prevent cervical cancer can cause mental retardation. That is simply a lie.
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"There is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement," according to AAP President Dr. O. Marion Burton. Read more...

Is the Forced Treatment of Addicts Ever Morally Justifiable?
The Temple Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds hosts this presentation by Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Penn Center for Bioethics, on Wednesday, September 14th at 12:00 noon at The Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia. Read more...

September 9, 2011
The Center for Bioethics Welcomes Visiting Scholar, Alfred Lane, MD
Alfred Lane, M.D., is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology and Professor of Dermatology and Pediatrics at Stanford University. His interests are in ethical decisions related to pediatric dermatology and ethical decisions related to complex therapies for genetic skin diseases. Dr. Lane will be visiting through November 2011.

September 9, 2011
Flu Vaccinations and Health Care Workers
The Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy, in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the statewide Health Care Worker Vaccination Taskforce, has developed an online resource aimed at improving the percentage of health care workers who are vaccinated for the flu. Read more...

September 7, 2011
Arlen Specter: Are Universities Doing Enough to Support NIH Funding?
(From Penn LDI) Universities that have received billions in National Institutes of Health grants...haven't done enough to support NIH's own fight to stave off Capitol Hill budget cuts, says former Senator Arlen Specter.
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In an interview with LDI Senior Fellow Art Caplan...Spector emphasized that the issue was not just the current reduction in NIH funding. Read more...

September 7, 2011
Should sperm donor regulations be tightened?
(From NBC Today) The discovery that a single donor's sperm has been used, unbeknownst to the donor, to create over 150 children, ignites controversy.
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"When you hear a situation of a single donor being used so that he fathered 150 children, there is no doubt, none, that is unethical practice." Read more...

September 7, 2011
For cigarette makers, limits to free speech
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer) [T]he tobacco companies argue in their free-speech suit that the new FDA warnings are "unprecedented."
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[C]an Big Tobacco possibly have a case? Legally - maybe. Ethically - no. Read more...

September 3, 2011
When medical bills top $1 million: One union's situation highlights reality of big insurance claims
(From TwinCities.com) Somewhere among the thousands of nurses and their dependents at the Allina health system, one person's serious health problem is generating an unusually large set of bills for the group.
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In general, the federal overhaul of the health system should help in these cases because "health reform spreads risk of these very high-cost patients over a broader pool," Caplan wrote in an email. Read more...

September 3, 2011
Ezekiel Emanuel moves to University of Pennsylvania
(From BioEdge) A bioethicist working in the White House who took much of the heat over “Obamacare death panels”, Ezechiel Emanuel, is moving to the University of Pennsylvania.
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UPenn is becoming a leading centre for progressive public policy bioethics, with such stars as Art Caplan... Jonathan Moreno...and Martha J. Farah. Read more...

August 31, 2011
Idaho woman challenges abortion laws after prosecution
(From Reuters) An Idaho woman prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy with an abortion pill... has filed suit challenging a decades-old law under which she was charged
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"It's headed in an interesting, fascinating and important direction because the future of abortion is pharmaceuticals, not surgical procedures," [Caplan] said. Read more...

August 30, 2011
Syhpilis Experiments Shock, But So Do Third World Drug Trials
(From ABC News) Medical ethicists say that... American companies are still testing drugs on poor, sometimes unknowing populations in the developing world.
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"Informed consent at its best is dubious in poor countries." - Arthur Caplan, PhD. Read more...

August 29, 2011
U.S. to shed light on Guatemala syphilis experiment
(From Reuters) A U.S. presidential commission will release on Monday its findings on a government research project that deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates and mental patients with syphilis in the 1940s.
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Protections for research participants may not work in some foreign countries where subjects are poor and illiterate... said Arthur Caplan. Read more...

Announcing the 2011-2012 LDI Research Seminar Series and Health Policy Seminar Series
The LDI Research Seminar Series hosts leading scholars in health services research, addressing methods, findings, policy implications, and problems. The LDI Health Policy Seminar Series convenes national policy makers, corporate leaders, health services research faculty, and students to discuss issues in health care policy, delivery, and research. Read more...

Philadelphia Vaccine Conference September 12
On September 12, a one-day conference titled "Quest for Research Excellence: Research Integrity Challenges in Vaccine Development and Distribution for Public Health Emergencies" will be held at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The conference is sponsored in part by the Center for Bioethics. Read more...

August 23, 2011
Foreign Drug Testing Raises Ethical Questions
(From PBS Newshour) Pharmaceutical companies have been shifting research overseas for years and the number of foreign trials has skyrocketed.
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Caplan explained the appeal of holding clinical trials in developing countries and the ethical issues raised by this research trend. Read more...

August 22, 2011
Op-Ed: Cut Medicare, Help Patients
(From The New York Times) Smart cuts eliminate spending... And they can be made without shortchanging patients.
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The list of procedures Medicare pays for that are proven to have no benefit goes on and on. Cutting payment for these is not rationing. Read more...

August 16, 2011
Editorial: The anti-vaccination peril
(From L.A. Times) Parents who refuse inoculations for their kids are putting other people's children at risk.
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According to the Center for Bioethics...more exemptions [from vaccinations required by schools] for nonmedical reasons are granted in states that make allowances for personal beliefs... Read more...

August 16, 2011
Is gender selection of a fetus ethical?
(From CNN) A new maternal blood test can determine a fetus' sex as early as seven weeks into a pregnancy.
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Different reasons provide different levels of justification [for abortion]...So what about sex? Read more...

August 15, 2011
Boy or girl? Early gender determination raises ethical questions
(From KPCC - Southern California Public Radio) Could more accurate and affordable gender determination reshape the abortion debate?
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Guest: Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Listen here...

August 15, 2011
Latino Health Paradox: Latinos Boast Low Infant Mortality, Long Lives Despite Risk Factors
(From The Huffington Post) [The] concept and its potential causes remain largely unknown to the general public and the subject of very limited research.
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"In this country, we do set research agendas through a combination of public interest, political responsiveness and scientific interest," said Arthur Caplan..."It's a dance between all those things." Read more...

August 12, 2011
On Faith: Be fruitful and subtract?
(From The Washington Post) "The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy" details the use of selective reduction by women who are pregnant with twins.
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Most Americans think abortion is a serious decision and requires moral justification and reflection. What seems missing is an equal concern about the morality of having children. Read more...

August 11, 2011
Are We Still a Nation of Science?
(From The Huffington Post) [O]ur scientists and engineers are the best possible advocates for reinvestment in innovation, especially considering the state of our economy.
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In the 21st century leadership in science is not optional for a nation that proposes to remain a superpower. Read more...

August 11, 2011
Israeli Court Allows Family to Harvest Dead Daughter's Eggs
(From ABC News) Despite the growing number of cases, medical ethicists remain unsettled with the idea of extracting eggs and semen after death.
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"I'm in favor of requiring waiting periods to let the emotions and grief calm down a bit," said Caplan. Read more...

August 9, 2011
Fetal genetic testing: A troubling technology
(From msnbc.com) Determining sex of a fetus as early as five weeks could result in a terminated pregnancy if the baby isn't what parents want
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I predict early fetal testing for sex selection will spread around the world quickly because there is an abundance of preference for sons and plenty of money to be made indulging it. Read more...

August 6, 2011
Op-Ed: Shortchanging Cancer Patients
(From The New York Times) Of the 34 generic cancer drugs on the market, as of this month, 14 were in short supply.
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You don’t have to be a cynical capitalist to see that the long-term solution is to make the production of generic cancer drugs more profitable. Read more...

August 5, 2011
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel Named Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor
(A message from Amy Gutmann and Vincent Price) President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price are pleased to announce that Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a globally renowned bioethicist, will join the faculty as the thirteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor, beginning September 1, 2011.
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His appointment will be shared between the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine, which he will Chair, and the Department of Health Care Management in the Wharton School.

August 5, 2011
Federal government was silent for too long on salmonella outbreak linked to ground turkey, critics say
(From pennlive.com) Illnesses in the outbreak date to March and have been reported in 26 states, including five in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Health.
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“I don’t think you wait to answer every question. I think you have to first alert people there is a possible problem,” Caplan said. Read more...

August 4, 2011
Reporter's Notebook: India's New Baby Boom
(From PBS) Indeed much of our information about this emerging [surrogacy] industry in India is based on anecdotes and worries University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist Arthur Caplan on many levels.
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"The contracts usually are more on the order of 'you're going to turn over the baby, you're going to get the money, and goodbye,'" Caplan said. Read more...

August 2, 2011
1 death, 76 illnesses linked to ground turkey
(From The Chicago Tribune) The [CDC] said preliminary information showed that three of the samples have been linked to the same production establishment but did not name the retailers or the manufacturers.
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Bioethicist Art Caplan said the government's handling of the outbreak raises ethical questions about why the public wasn't warned sooner. Read more...

July 27, 2011
Hill Physician Pulled Into 2012 Politics
(From Roll Call) With [Congress' physician] Monahan's note last week declaring Rep. Michele Bachmann in "overall good health"...the nonpartisan and normally under-the-radar office was thrust into a highly charged debate.
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Caplan said that [releasing such letters regularly] could lead to the politicizing of a nonpartisan profession. Read more...

July 25, 2011
Anti-addiction drugs face more than medical issues
(From NewScientist) Should drug addicts be vaccinated to help them recover?
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Some authorities, such as bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, have suggested coercing addicts into taking drugs like naltrexone, which curb the highs they crave. Read more...

July 23, 2011
Time to mandate influenza vaccination in health-care workers
(From The Lancet) Given the failure of voluntary vaccination strategies and the dangers low vaccination rates present to vulnerable patients, shouldn't all health-care workers be required to be vaccinated against influenza and other communicable diseases as a condition of their employment? Read more...

July 23, 2011
University Hospital merger stirs end-of-life care fears
(From the Courier-Journal) A growing chorus of protest from local residents, doctors and others has erupted over the fact that Catholic doctrine could override patients' end-of-life wishes under a pending merger of three Kentucky hospitals.
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“It will depend on hospital administrators and how vigorously they are going to follow the teachings,” Caplan said. Read more...

July 20, 2011
Attack on 'telemedicine' is really about squashing women's rights
(From msnbc.com) Latest attempt to restrict abortion is discussed as a safety concern, despite evidence to the contrary
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A new study found that using telemedicine for instructing a woman on how to use RU-486 is just as effective and acceptable as a face-to-face office visit. Read more...

July 19, 2011
Fraudulent Stem Cell Claims Worry Scientists
(From 90.9 WBUR) While few doubt the promise of stem cells in the treatment of a host of diseases and conditions, false claims are cropping up that stem cells can cure everything from paralysis to old age.
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Bioethicist Art Caplan writes that scientists who have tried to set the record straight have been bullied to keep quiet. Read more...

July 18, 2011
Stem cell clinics ripping off patients, bullying scientists
(From msnbc.com) Legal threats prompt shutdown of website detailing lack of oversight in growing field
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These charlatan claims [about the therapeutic uses of stem cells] have sparked worries among stem cell researchers that the credibility of the entire field could be damaged. Read more...

WORKSHOP: Categories & Controversies--Ethical Dimensions of the DSM-5
September 16, 2011: The development of the new DSM-5 (slated to be published in 2013) brings with it a unique set of ethical challenges. The ScattergoodEthics Program invites you to join Dr. David Kupfer and a group of interdisciplinary faculty in a day-long, interactive discussion about these challenges. Continuing education credits are available. To register or learn more, click here.

July 12, 2011
Obesity alone is no reason to remove kids from their homes
(From msnbc.com) The only basis for compelling medical treatment against a parent’s wishes are if a child is at imminent risk of death--meaning days or hours--and a proven cure exists for what threatens to kill them. Obesity does not pass these requirements. Read more...

July 1, 2011
Jill M. Baren, MD, named Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine
On behalf of Penn Bioethics, congratulations to Dr. Jill M. Baren, a graduate of the Penn Master of Bioethics program, on her new appointment as Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine!

June 28, 2011
Community members talk it out: end-of-life care and face transplants
(From WHYY Newsworks) As part of its commitment to fostering public dialogue, WHYY's Health and Science Desk sponsored a community ethics discussion Monday night.
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Penn's Art Caplan said though face transplants aren't likely to become all that common anytime soon, now is the time to have a public dialogue about them. Read more...

June 27, 2011
Should Jared Laughner be forcibly drugged?
(From msnbc.com) Alleged Ariz. shooter may be given antipsychotic medications so that he can stand trial.
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The usual standard for treating someone against their will with psychiatric medications is that they are a danger to themselves or others. Read more...

June 27, 2011
Evolution machine: Genetic engineering on fast forward
(From New Scientist) So far [the evolution machine] is just a prototype, but if its proponents are to be believed, future versions could revolutionise biology, allowing us to evolve new organisms or rewrite whole genomes with ease.
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[Caplan] says, if MAGE really can be used to edit the genome of human cells, it would provide a way to fix the mutations that cause inherited disease. Read more...

June 24, 2011
STD campaign asks lovers to give out meds
(From msnbc.com) Called "expedited partner therapy" (EPT), the burgeoning practice allows patients to give antibiotics to their lovers.
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If EPT does prove significantly more effective at stemming chlamydia infections, [Caplan] thinks it is worth the risk. Read more...

EVENT: WHYY/NewsWorks Health and Science Desk present Ethics on the Edge
On the evening of June 27, 2011, the WHYY/NewsWorks Health and Science Desk invites you to think along with Art Caplan for an evening called: Ethics on the Edge. It will run from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Hamilton Public Media Commons at WHYY, 150 N. Sixth St., Philadelphia, PA. It is free, but pre-registration is required. Light refreshments will be served. To register and for more information please contact Chris Satullo at csatullo@whyy.org

June 24, 2011
Court was wrong to give generic drugs pass on side effect warnings
(From msnbc.com) Ruling that drug makers can't be sued for failing to list warnings violates spirit of the law -- and endangers consumers.
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This is one lousy decision. Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote for the majority said as much. Read more...

June 24, 2011
Considering vaccine as pubic responsibility
(From Philly.com) To what extent am I responsible for my neighbors' health?
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"In the United States, personal medicine has dominated public health," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Pediatricians don't think about 'public' health. They think about Joey." Read more...

June 23, 2011
Heiress's nurse inherits $30 million - But should she?
(From msnbc.com) When the wealthy and reclusive copper heiress Huguette M. Clark died recently at the age of 104, she left $30 million to her personal nurse and $100,000 to her doctor, among other gifts bequested to charities and her accountant and lawyer.
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Ideally, no doctor or nurse should allow a grateful patient to make them rich. Read more...

June 22, 2011
Bioethics and the Legacy of 'Dr. Death'
(From Interfaith Voices) Dr. Jack Kevorkian - the public face of physician-assisted suicide - died in early June. He said he helped about 130 people end their lives with homemade machines he called the "Mercitron" and "Thanatron." [Penn's Dr. Arthur Caplan] explains the pros and cons of one of the most controversial practices in the world of medicine. Read more...

June 21, 2011
Stem-Cell Gamble
(From Technology Review) After years of controversy, a therapy based on human embryonic stem cells is finally being tested in humans. The treatment holds out hope to paralyzed people, but at how great a risk?
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Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and a defender of stem-cell research, calls the Geron study poorly designed and says it should never have been allowed to proceed. Read more...

CONFERENCE: Research Integrity Challenges in Vaccine Development and Distribution for Public Health Emergencies
Save the date! September 12, 2011
The conference will be held at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Sponsored by the Office of Research Integrity and the US Department of Health and Human Services. Look for more information to come here.

June 16, 2011
Ethics of vaccination programs
(From Science Direct) Recent developments highlight fundamental principles of vaccine ethics... These include the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccination campaign, renewed attention to the potential global eradication of polio, and the ongoing evaluation of vaccine risk controversies, most notably the alleged link between childhood vaccines and autism. Read more...

June 15, 2011
Vaccination: Facts Alone Do Not Policy Make
(From HealthAffairs) Offit’s and Mnookin’s books get the factual basis absolutely right. Had they gone on to address this values framework, they would have contributed even more to the fight against vaccine ignorance and denial. Read more...

June 15, 2011
WHYY/NewsWorks Health and Science Desk present Ethics on the Edge
On the evening of June 27, 2011, the WHYY/NewsWorks Health and Science Desk invites you to think along with Art Caplan for an evening called: Ethics on the Edge. It will run from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Hamilton Public Media Commons at WHYY, 150 N. Sixth St., Philadelphia, PA. It is free, but pre-registration is required. Light refreshments will be served. To register and for more information please contact Chris Satullo at csatullo@whyy.org

June 14, 2011
AcademyHealth Honors Penn Medicine's Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD
(Penn Medicine News Release) Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been selected for AcademyHealth's 2011 Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award. Read more...

May 31, 2011
Bioethicist Faults Media for Vaccine Reporting Distortions
(From LDI Health Economist) Despite the definitive debunking of a 1998 research paper linking vaccines and Autism that triggered a national anti-vaccination movement, many parents still won't vaccinate their children, even as the rate of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough continues to rise. Read more...

May 22, 2011
Dosed in juvie jail: Drug firms pay state-hired doctors
(From The Palm Beach Post) Doctors hired to evaluate kids in state custody have taken huge payments from drug companies.
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"I think...we worry that paying and marketing and advertising and detailing can shape behavior," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. Read more...

May 22, 2011
Patients at heart of medical device issue
(From the Chicago Tribune) Recipients of life-saving products may not know of potential conflicts of interest when doctors put their own inventions to use.
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"You should never, ever be studying what you own, what you have royalties from, what you have patents on," Caplan said. Read more...

May 17, 2011
An apology's healing power
(From the Philadelphia Inquirer) How should doctors and nurses deal with their mistakes? Should an apology be part of the response?
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Many [lawyers] warn clients that any admission of error or fault - even a heartfelt expression of regret - is likely to invite litigation, jack up premiums, and ruin careers. Read more...

May 16, 2011
Cash or a Prayer Book: New Hurdles for Adult Stem Cell Research
(From Science Progress) Conservatives who abhor embryo destruction have been the greatest proponents of iPSC research as an alternative to using cells from human embryos.
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In the early days of research in a new area, no one can say with any certainty what will work or that anything will work. Research is difficult and often fails. Read more...

May 16, 2011
Science Weekly podcast: The human era, and war without tears
(From the Guardian) We also hear from the author of Mind Wars, philosopher Jonathan Moreno at the University of Pennsylvania about the ethical implications of using neuroscience in security activities and military research.
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What would it mean if soldiers were to have their ability to form emotional memories blocked before going into battle...? Read more...

May 14, 2011
The Unreal World: Tracking down sperm-donor dads
(From the Los Angeles Times) What are the rules for anonymity and donation frequency? What traits are inherited, and what emerges from environment? A new documentary looks at the questions.
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Kids trump parents, Caplan concludes, and their need to know is more important: "Courts will go this way, as they do in adoption." Read more...

May 12, 2011
Brand New ScattergoodEthics Program Website Launched
The Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Healthcare, based in the Penn Center for Bioethics, is dedicated to the discussion, research, and resource production for the field of psychiatric, mental, and behavioral healthcare ethics. For updates please see our Facebook and Twitter pages. Read more...

May 11, 2011
University of Pennsylvania Announces $225 Million Gift
Excerpt from a Message from David L. Cohen and Amy Gutmann: We are delighted to inform you that Raymond and Ruth Perelman have contributed $225 million to Penn’s School of Medicine, the largest single gift ever given to the University and the largest single gift to name a medical school in United States history. In recognition of this unique and wonderfully generous gift, the school will be renamed the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

May 10, 2011
Residency in Psychiatry: Ethics Track
In conjuction with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the ScattergoodEthics Program will offer directed research and didactics for psychiatry residents and fellows interested in developing their skills in the applied ethics of behavioral healthcare. Read more...

May 9, 2011
Novel study suggests autism three times more prevalent than thought
(From Nature) It estimates the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 2.6%, or 1 in 38 children...in the Ilsan district of Goyang City, South Korea.
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The study also belies claims that a rise in autism is linked to vaccination programs, Caplan says. Read more...

May 8, 2011
It's Nurse vs. Doctor on the New York Times Op-Ed Page
(From the Atlantic) An oncology nurse penned a blistering op-ed in Sunday's New York Times venting against doctors for creating a culture of disrespect in hospitals.
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"Retribution against workplace colleagues as a result of anger when it is easy to retrospectively identify who is who in a health care setting can adversely impact patient care," Caplan adds. Read more...

May 5, 2011
Art Caplan on Ethics and Clinical Trials, The Stem Cell Debate, and More
(From Medscape) Hello. I am Eli Adashi, Professor of Medical Science at Brown University and host of Medscape One-on-One. Joining me today is Dr. Arthur Caplan, the Emanuel and Robert Hart Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. An internationally renowned bioethicist, Dr. Caplan has taken on many of the thorny issues of our time. Read more...

May 2, 2011
Was it right to kill bin Laden?
(From msnbc.com) Amid the celebrations over the death of al-Qaida's leader, Art Caplan weighs in on the ethics of assassination.
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Killing Osama bin Laden is not unethical murder -- it is the price organized terrorists who declare war against us must expect to pay. Read more...

April 26, 2011
Convicted Rapist Kenneth Pike Next in Line for Heart Transplant
(From ABC News) Convicted rapist Kenneth Pike, of Auburn, N.Y., is expected to undergo a life-saving heart transplant that could cost up to $800,000 -- a price that will be paid courtesy of New York state taxpayers.
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Transplant centers have the right to turn patients away, but physicians are required to care for every patient they see, according to Art Caplan. Read more...

April 25, 2011
The ad that could help fuel a health crisis
(From Salon) Anti-vaccinationists took out a billboard in Times Square. How can they do that, and why aren't we fighting back?
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To Caplan, the ethical question that the jumbotron owner faces is whether or not the ad sends a message that would lead to harm, especially to kids too young to be vaccinated. Read more...

April 23, 2011
As science turns from chimp research, US wants to restart it
(From Mercury News) The chimps at the Alamogordo Primate Facility have been withheld from research the past 10 years as part of an agreement between the NIH and the Air Force base where the facility is located. Now the NIH wants to move the chimps away from Alamogordo, where they'll be allowed to be put back into research.
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"For primate research, you had better be able to show me that you've got something that's pretty promising: an HIV vaccine, a cancer drug," said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania ethicist who led a government panel in the 1980s that set guidelines for animal research. Read more...

April 21, 2011
Drug war shouldn't claim new victims
(From the Star Tribune) The latest battle in the war on drugs must not create a new and innocent group of victims -- patients imprisoned by their own pain because doctors are unwilling or unable to prescribe the powerful pain medications that they need.
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The initiative "really could have a chilling effect ... and could potentially get in the way of people who do need serious pain control,'' said Art Caplan...Read more...

April 21, 2011
Organs from inmates? That idea should be DOA
(From MSNBC.com) Commentary: Practical, ethical barriers should bar murderers from becoming heroes.
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The push to find more organs has gotten so desperate that we are now negotiating with mass murderers about the feasibility of using their parts after they are executed. Read more...

CONFERENCE: 2011 AAHM Annual Meeting
The American Association for the History of Medicine will be holding their annual conference from April 28 - May 1, 2011 in Philadelphia. Join the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation as they explore Philadelphia's rich medical history. For more information on the conference, registration, and hotel accommodations, read more...

April 18, 2011
On Exaggeration Allegations into "Three Cups of Tea"
(From CNN Newsroom) Art Caplan, PhD, director of the Center for Bioethics, appeared on a CNN broadcast to discuss allegations by 60 Minutes that specific stories in the book "Three Cups of Tea" were fabricated or exaggerated.
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"It undercuts the public’s willingness to support the charities," said Caplan. Read more...

April 18, 2011
The Stem Cell Hype Machine
(From Science Progress) The Top Five Over-Hyped Claims About Stem Cell Research
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Proponents of embryonic stem cell research have too often engaged in hype about cures. Well, now that I have your attention, let’s get all the hype about embryonic stem cell research out on the table. Read more...

EVENT: Cluster B Personality Disorders: Ethical Issues in Nosology, Diagnosis & Treatment
The Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Healthcare is hosting an institute on May 6, 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania. The institute will include lectures and case discussions regarding ethical issues surrounding the care of people with Cluster B personality disorders. Continuing Education credits are available. Read more...

April 12, 2011
Buying A $100,000 Kidney: A Story of Supply and Demand
(From 24/7 Wall St) The idea of compensating donors of vital organs, which strikes many as morally repugnant, is gaining acceptance among some parts of the medical community...
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"In America, people aren’t going to sell their organs for small amounts of money...You are really going to take advantage of the poorest of the poor." Read more...

EVENT: Mental Health Ethics Film Series
Presented by the Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Healthcare; and the Penn Bioethics Society
April 21: Join us at the Center for Bioethics for a screening and discussion of the film "Titicut Follies" with Dr. Arthur Caplan. Please see our flyer for more information.

EVENT: Inevitability of Rationing in our Health Care Future
Philadephia Science Festival
Join Dr. Art Caplan in a discussion on rationing healthcare resources on April 27, 2011 as a part of the Philadelphia Science Festival. The discussion is free and open to the public.
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"How should we ration and what principles ought to guide our thinking?" Please see the updated flyer for more information.

April 5, 2011
Inquiry Into Payments by Device Maker
(From The New York Times) Nevada state officials have begun an investigation to determine if payments to cardiologists there by a little-known heart device company were legitimate consulting fees or inducements to the doctors for using its products.
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"It is giving off a reeking aroma of conflict of interest," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Read more...

April 5, 2011
Arizona proposes fee for obese or smoking Medicaid recipients
(From Southern California Public Radio) For the first time ever, the Arizona legislature will vote on a proposal by Governor Jan Brewer, to tax Medicaid recipients for leading an unhealthy life style.
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Art Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, debates the issue with Micheal Tanner, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Listen...

April 4, 2011
Penn Study: Cardiovascular Patients’ Perspectives On Guilt As A Motivational Tool
(From Penn Medicine) Current research supports the notion that lifestyle choices influence cardiovascular health, but to what extent specific emotions play is undefined.
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“When counseling cardiovascular patients about lifestyle, practitioners should consider addressing guilt as both a motivation for, and a barrier to, lifestyle change, particularly in patients with religious backgrounds,” concluded senior author James Kirkpatrick, MD. Read more...

April 4, 2011
Should Prisoners 'Redeem' Themselves By Donating Organs?
(From Medscape) One of the toughest arguments in saying that he should be allowed to donate his organs, or that anybody who is guilty of a capital crime should be allowed to donate organs, is what are the survivors of the victims going to think about the redemption that comes with criminals donating their organs? Read more...

April 1, 2011
Picking on the poor, obese no way to balance Arizona's budget
(From msnbc.com) Like many states, Arizona faces a serious budget crisis. But unlike other states, Arizona public officials have shown a remarkable skill for finding ways to address their projected $1.6 billion deficit that are unfair, unjust and cruel. Their latest bright idea is to balance the state budget on the bodies of poor Arizonans who are unlucky enough to be fat or addicted to tobacco. Read more...

March 29, 2011
Should a Disabled Mom Be Banned from Seeing Her Kids?
(From Time Healthland) "The court finds that even though [Dorn] cannot interact with the children, the children can interact with [Dorn] -- and that the interaction is beneficial for the children," wrote Judge Frederick Shaller.
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“It's not ethical to say because she's handicapped that she can't in some ways appreciate or be benefited from seeing them,” says Art Caplan... Read more...

March 29, 2011
Local decline in number of organ donors
(From Philly.com) In the last four years, however, that number [of organ donors] has leveled off. Last year, total donors were down slightly nationwide. Locally, there was a bigger drop.
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New ways of treating people who have suffered brain injuries - the primary route through which a person becomes a donor - have shrunk the pool of candidates, [Caplan] said. Read more...

March 28, 2011
ICU Family Shrines of Hope
(From Vimeo) Sometimes, family members of patients in hospital intensive care units post displays of mementos and photographs on the wall near the foot of the bed to inform care givers and visitors about their loved one and to show how much they care.
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The photographs displayed here were taken...at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Read more...

March 28, 2011
Study Finds Conflict Among Panels' Doctors
(From The New York Times) Doctors with private financial conflicts of interest dominated some of the panels that wrote guidelines on cardiovascular health in recent years, according to a medical journal study released on Monday.
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“The conflicts are quite prevalent, but they’re by no means ubiquitous,” Dr. Kirkpatrick, an assistant professor of medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said in an interview about the research... Read more...

March 28, 2011
Conflicts of Interest in Cardiovascular Clinical Practice Guidelines
(From the Archives of Internal Medicine) Tom B. Mendelson, MD, MBE; Michele Meltzer, MD, MBE; Eric G. Campbell, PhD; Arthur L. Caplan, PhD; James N. Kirkpatrick, MD
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Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) serve as standards of care in practice, quality improvement, and reimbursement. The extent of conflicts of interest (COIs) in cardiology guideline production has not been well studied. Read more...

March 28, 2011
EVENT: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Vaccines: The Need for Ethical Grounding
APRIL 4th: 12-1:30pm. A presentation led by Robert Field, PhD, MPH, JD, a professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at Drexel University.
Includes discussions with Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania; and David Curry, MS, Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy, University of Pennsylvania.

March 27, 2011
Disabled mother Abby Dorn fighting for the right to see her triplets
(From The Telegraph) A court in the US is being asked to make a tough decision as to whether a severely disabled woman has the right to see her triplets - against the father's wishes.
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Professor Art Caplan, head of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "This is a very difficult case. It is not just about this mother's right to see her children; it's also a battle about her children's right to see their mother, and what's in their best interests." Read more...

March 25, 2011
Paralyzed mom should have permanent visitation rights
(From msnbc.com) Father of triplets argues kids would be traumatized by severely disabled mother
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The mother’s condition may be disturbing, but children, like the rest of us, can accommodate the reality of very severe disability. Read more...

March 25, 2011
Aetna sues doctors over bills it calls 'excessive'
(From NorthJersey.com) One of the nation's largest insurers has sued six North Jersey physicians over bills it considers "unlawful and excessive," including $56,980 for a 25-minute bedside consultation.
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"I can certainly say that what Aetna has experienced, other payers have experienced," Sanders said. Read more...

March 24, 2011
Theory, citizenship and the body
(From the Penn Current) "A conference...at Penn will bring together scholars from various fields to discuss disability and citizenship in U.S. history, disability and sexuality and new directions in the theoretical field. "Civil Disabilities: Theory, Citizenship and the Body" runs from 4 to 9:30 p.m. on March 31 and from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. on April 1."
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Penn scholars such as Anita Allen and Art Caplan are among the speakers and moderators. Read more...

March 21, 2011
'Complete regulatory collapse': Why complaints about abortion doctor went nowhere
(From Philly.com) Filings against Gosnell - five were made from 2002 to 2009 - were handled by various lawyers [at the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs], some of whom told the grand jury that they had been unaware of Gosnell's full complaint history. Each case was closed without action.
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Penn's Caplan said, the culture "is oriented toward keeping doctors in practice..." Read more...

March 20, 2011
When risks are high, heroes must be repaid
(From msnbc.com) 'Fukushima 50' are owed assistance, compensation if those health fears become a reality
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Is it right to ask the few to sacrifice greatly to help the rest? When the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facilities began to melt down, the executives at Tokyo Electric Company had to make this request. Read more...

March 18, 2011
Plight of ailing, elderly quake victims renews questions from Katrina
(From msnbc.com) What should doctors do for suffering patients, for whom no relief or rescue is likely?
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Every health care worker should know that pain control is an absolute duty when conditions become impossible even if it risks the death of the frail and the weak. Read more...

March 16, 2011
Ed Bergman wins Whitney Award for Teaching
Center for Bioethics Senior Fellow Ed Bergman, JD, has been selected as one of the five winners of the Whitney Award for Undergraduate Teaching in the Affiliated Faculty. The award is chosen based on student course evaluations, and is a sign of both Mr. Bergman's excellent work as a teacher and of the University's appreciation of his efforts and talents. His name will be recognized in the Wharton Undergraduate Graduation Ceremony program and will also be announced at the ceremony on May 15th. Congratulations Ed!

March 14, 2011
LECTURE: "Empirical neuroethics and normative questions: The case of ADHD and Ritalin-type drugs"
The Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society will be hosting a lecture by Dr. Ilina Singh, Reader in Bioethics and Society at the London School of Economics, on Wednesday March 16th from 12pm - 2pm. Dr. Singh's work explores the psycho-social and ethical implications of advances in bioscience and biomedicine for young people and families. Read more...

March 14, 2011
EVENT: Ethical Choices When Medicine Can't Save Your Life
The Jewish Social Policy Action Network (JSPAN) is hosting a free conference open to the public on Thursday, April 14th. Speakers for the video and panel discussion include the University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Arthur Caplan. Read more...

March 11, 2011
EVENT: Inevitability of Rationing in our Health Care Future
Philadephia Science Festival
Join Dr. Art Caplan in a discussion on rationing healthcare resources on April 27, 2011 as a part of the Philadelphia Science Festival. The discussion is free and open to the public.
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(From the Festival website) "Climbing obesity rates, a continuously growing population, and increased costs for diagnostic testing show that the cost of healthcare will continue to be a hot button issue." Read more...

March 6, 2011
OSU had role in old drug trials
(From The Columbus Dispatch) Henry Langlois was one of 38 soldiers who were told in 1955 that they were serving their country when they volunteered to inhale a biological agent that the government was testing.
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Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said even tougher protections are needed. Read more...

March 5, 2011
Montana Supreme Court steps in to allow appeal in hysterectomy ruling
(From the Billings Gazette) One day after a Missoula County District Court judge ordered a hysterectomy for a woman with cancer, the Montana Supreme Court stepped in and halted the surgery to allow an appeal.
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"The more a disease or a problem for an adult is life-threatening, the more likely it is that treatment is compelled if the person is mentally impaired," said Arthur L. Caplan. Read more...

March 4, 2011
Investigation: Ethics Violations in Health Experiments
(From The Take Away) But just days before [the presidential bioethics committee] met, a new comprehensive investigation by the Associated Press found that for decades, the United States government also knew about and authorized medical experiments on disabled people and prison inmates.
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Arthur Caplan, Professor of Bioethics at University of Pennsylvania, says it is unethical to make a healthy person sick, even in the name of national security. Listen...

March 4, 2011
Despite advances, technology can't ID 'criminal brain'
(From msnbc.com) Opinion: Neuroscience is far from ready for prime time in the courtroom
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When freedom and liberty--along with treatment, rehabilitation and even surgery--hang in the balance, we need far more evidence and certainty then exists right now. Read more...

March 3, 2011
Immigrant's Health Crisis Leaves Family on Sideline
(From The New York Times) On Feb. 19, Ms. Nyirahabiyambere’s feeding tube was removed on the order of her court-appointed guardian. Her six adult children--including two United States citizens--vehemently opposed that decision.
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“End-of-life decisions have to be treated with great sensitivity--and, ideally, with families fully involved and respected.” Read more...

March 1, 2011
Gutmann bridges University, D.C.
(From the Daily Pennsylvanian) Penn President Amy Gutmann is putting Penn on the map--in Washington, D.C.
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“By chairing the President’s Commission, I’m helping showcase Penn’s strength in the area of bioethics,” she said. Read more...

March 1, 2011
Allocating Organs: Who Gets the Next Kidney?
(From On Point) Longstanding policy has been, more or less, “first come, first served.” Now there’s a debate over a new approach that would openly, distinctly, advantage the young and disadvantage the old.
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Guests include Arthur Caplan, professor and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Listen...

March 1, 2011
Measles-carrier had right to skip shot; we have right to sue
(From msnbc.com) New Mexico woman traveled through four airports, putting others at risk
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Our traveler has the right to choose against being vaccinated. But she does not have the right to expose those at high risk of infection--newborns, those with immunological disorders and those whose immune systems are suppressed due to a transplant or cancer treatment--to a fatal case of measles. Read more...

March 1, 2011
What Obama & Congress Should Do For Health and Medicine
(From My Health News Daily) If you could ask President Obama and Congress to do one thing related to your field that would be for the good of the economy and the country, what would it be and why?
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"The President should call a press conference, roll up his sleeve, get his flu shot and talk about why vaccines are extraordinarily safe and effective."--Arthur Caplan. Read more...

February 27, 2011
AP IMPACT: Past medical testing on humans revealed
(From The Washington Post) Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
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"When you give somebody a disease - even by the standards of their time - you really cross the key ethical norm of the profession," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. Read more...

February 25, 2011
Creating tomorrow's abortion providers at UC and Stanford
(From MercuryNews.com) Graduating in record numbers from medical schools, young women are increasing the ranks of tomorrow's abortion providers, bringing the procedure out of the margins and into mainstream medicine...
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"Medical schools feel that abortion is a medical procedure that doctors need to know about. We have all kinds of topics in medical education, like physician-assisted suicide, but that doesn't mean we're in favor of them." Read more...

February 25, 2011
Organ Donation: Should Younger Patients Get Better Kidneys?
(From ABC News) Amid organ shortages, transplant surgeons, ethicists rethink who should get prime organs.
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"When faced with the prospect of rationing, the ethical responsibility is to use resources prudently and save the most lives and years of life," said Arthur Caplan. Read more...

February 24, 2011
New Kidney Transplant Policy Would Favor Younger Patients
(From The New York Times) The new policy would replace the current first-come-first-served system and is intended to provide better matches between the life expectancies of recipients and the functional life of donated kidneys.
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“If it’s a choice between saving grandpa or granddaughter, I think you save granddaughter first,” Dr. Caplan said. Read more...

February 24, 2011
Under kidney transplant proposal, younger patients would get the best organs
(From The Washington Post) The nation's organ-transplant network is considering giving younger, healthier people preference over older, sicker patients for the best kidneys.
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" This is moving it away from a save-the-sickest strategy to trying to get a greater yield in terms of years of life saved." Read more...

February 22, 2011
Genomes, race and health
(From EMBO reports) Racial profiling in medicine might just be a stepping stone towards personalized health care.
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"You have to redo the whole health-care system to make that possible... It's a big, big revamping. That's not going to happen in 10 years." - Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

February 18, 2011
Abortion rights are under attack, and pro-choice advocates are caught in a time warp
(From The Washington Post) In the nearly four decades since the Supreme Court ruled that women have a fundamental right to decide to have an abortion, the opposition to legal abortion has increased dramatically... Meanwhile, those of us in the abortion-rights movement have barely changed our approach.
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Those arguments may have worked in the 1970s, but today, they are failing us, and focusing on them only risks us all the gains we've made. Read more...

February 16, 2011
Proposed state law that would limit abortion access relies on disputed science
(From The Florida Independent) The proposed bill, to be titled the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," claims that "by 20 weeks after fertilization there is substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain."
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"A variety of groups and commissions... have, in recent years, examined the question of when a fetus can feel pain. None of them has reached a consensus that is reflected in the proposed legislation." - Art Caplan, PhD, in a congressional testimony. Read more...

February 16, 2011
Why ER Docs Test for Illegal Drugs Without Consent
(From Time) Suppose you come in acting confused or excessively sleepy. Your doctors need to know right now whether your condition is caused by alcohol or drugs, or whether it's something else like a brain infection, a stroke or a seizure.
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Of course, it isn't so simple. There are some real tradeoffs to testing emergency-department patients for illicit drugs. As practitioners we need to pay attention to the downsides of these tests so we don't overuse them. Read more...

February 12, 2011
Company Pays Government to Challenge Pesticide Research Linked to Parkinson's
(From Politics Daily) In an unusual scenario that raises questions of conflict of interest, a company that conducts research on behalf of the pesticide industry has paid a U.S. government agency to help prove some controversial chemicals are safe.
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Science-for-hire firms, Caplan says, must by nature be attentive to the needs of their corporate underwriters. Read more...

February 7, 2011
Panel Discussion: "Human Trafficking, Exploitation and Abuse of Sex Workers: Suggested Remedies"
55th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Date: March 3, 2011
777 UN Plaza, 2nd Floor, New York, New York.
Speakers include Center for Bioethics Visiting Scholar, Frances Kissling. Read more...

February 7, 2011
Don't let anyone stop talk about end-of-life wishes
(From msnbc.com) Tossing aside irresponsible rhetoric about death panels, euthanasia, health-care rationing and throwing grannies on ice floes, the cancer experts say candid conversations are the key to ensuring comfort and dignity in the final days.
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It seems like a given that end-of-life conversations should be encouraged. Sadly, in the hands of some conservative politicians trying to revoke the new health care law, it isn't. Read more...

February 6, 2011
Debate swirls around overseas surrogacy
(From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) Increasingly, couples and individuals who cannot afford surrogacy services in the United States are looking to women in other countries to turn their dreams of parenthood into reality.
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Although surrogates are paid as much as $8,000 -- equivalent to 15 years of salary in India -- Caplan said the money often does not lift the surrogates out of poverty. "The woman gets some money, but she'll use it for debts, and end up back in poverty, only with less debt," Caplan said. "So there is a high degree of exploitation." Read more...

February 5, 2011
Has justice been served in Guidant recall case?
(From The Star Tribune) Six years after his 21-year-old patient died because of a defective heart implant, Dr. Robert Hauser still wonders why no Guidant Corp. executive has faced criminal charges for selling a device they knew could fail.
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"In egregious cases it makes ethical sense to hold executives accountable for deaths and disability they directly permitted to happen." -- Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

February 3, 2011
Governor Corbett to Nominate Brian Duke as Secretary of Aging
(From the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania) Governor Tom Corbett today announced that he intends to nominate Brian Duke, 53, of Washington Crossing, Bucks County, as Secretary of Aging.
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Duke received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Scranton, his Master of Health Administration from George Washington University and his MBE in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

February 3, 2011
Annual Lehman Lecture to Focus on Ethics of Face and Limb Transplants
(From Allegheny College) Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, will present a free public lecture titled “Facing Ethics: The Ethics of Face and Limb Transplants” on Thursday, Feb. 17 at Allegheny College. The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. in Quigley Hall auditorium and is part of the college’s Lehman Medical Ethics Lecture Series. Read more...

February 3, 2011
Not a 'Death Panel': Call it 'Quality of Life'
(From Medscape Today) I'm Art Caplan from the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about end-of-life care planning.
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The crucial thing is protecting people's right to choose the kind of care they want. Read more...

February 3, 2011
Congratulations to the Center for Bioethics Fellow Dominic Sisti, PhD
Dominic Sisti, PhD -- Director of the Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health, and brand-new father to daughter Isla Grace Sisti -- has been nominated and accepted to the LeadingSuccessT Program in the School of Medicine.

February 2, 2011
Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation
Center for Bioethics Fellow Scott Halpern, MD, PhD, MBE, will be speaking at this advisory meeting on March 8, 2011. The meeting, hosted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, will be held at the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center in Washington, DC. Read more...

February 2, 2011
**CANCELED!** - Mental Health Film Series Event
Tonight's screening of "Titicut Follies" with Dr. Art Caplan, hosted by the Penn Bioethics Society and the ScattergoodEthics Program, has been canceled due to inclement weather. It has been rescheduled for April 21 at 6:30pm. Please see the series' Facebook page for more information on this and future events. Read more...

CONFERENCE
Genetic Diseases of Children -- Advancing Care and Research
March 8-9, 2011
Sheraton New York Hotel; New York, New York
Speaker's include the Center for Bioethics Director Art Caplan, PhD
Limited time discounted rates on registration and hotel rooms! Read more...

February 2, 2011
**CANCELED!** - Mental Health Film Series Event
Tonight's screening of "Titicut Follies" with Dr. Art Caplan, hosted by the Penn Bioethics Society and the ScattergoodEthics Program, has been canceled due to inclement weather. It has been rescheduled for April 21 at 6:30pm. Please see the series' Facebook page for more information on this and future events. Read more...

February 1, 2011
Faking Organisms -- How can we govern the garage biologists who are tinkering with life?
(From Slate) Synthetic biology -- the engineering of new forms of life -- is the kind of science that can freak people out. Some critics want to stop or restrict it.
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President Obama's bioethics commission, in its report on this emerging technology, advocates a subtler approach: "an ongoing process of prudent vigilance that carefully monitors, identifies, and mitigates potential and realized harms over time." Read more...

January 31, 2011
Art Caplan - Bioethics Comes of Age
(Podcast from CastRoller) In this wide ranging episode, Caplan discusses not only the latest issues and problems in his field, but also how those issues have changed over time. Fresh from the ideological fights of the Bush administration-over culture war issues like stem cells, cloning, and Terri Schiavo-bioethicists like Caplan are now more focused on practical matters like access to healthcare. And so is the country as a whole. Listen...

January 31, 2011
Critics Say Gates's Anti-Polio Push is Misdirected
(From The New York Times) On Monday... Bill Gates made an appeal for one more big push to wipe out world polio. However, even as he presses forward, Mr. Gates faces a hard question from some eradication experts and bioethicists: Is it right to keep trying?
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Arthur L. Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's bioethics center, who himself spent nine months in a hospital with polio as a child, said in an interview, “We ought to admit that the best we can achieve is control.” Read more...

January 31, 2011
Bill Gates Channels Franklin Roosevelt in Push to Eradicate Global Polio
(From Bloomberg.com) Bill Gates... called for urgent donations to stop the spread of polio and make it the first infectious disease eradicated since smallpox was wiped from the planet in 1979.
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Even if reported polio cases fall to zero, the surveillance needed to confirm eradication will be difficult in conflict zones and in North Korea and Myanmar, where rates of infectious diseases are tough to monitor, Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, wrote in a commentary in The Lancet medical journal in 2009. Read more...

January 21, 2011
A Stem Cell Cure for HIV? by MBE alum Dr. Leslie K. Serchuck
(From Science Progress) Recently, doctors announced that the “Berlin Patient” may be the first person ever to achieve a functional cure of HIV. This has big implications for the medical world and the future of stem cell research.
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In what appears to be an impossible dream to others with the disease, it has been three and a half years since Mr. Brown took his last HIV medication and yet there has been no sign of the infection in his blood, liver, colon, or brain. Read more...

January 21, 2011
Seminar:
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan to discuss possibilities and pitfalls of personalized medicine
The Florida International University
The FIU Biomedical Engineering Department will host a lecture with bioethics expert Arthur Caplan as part of the 2010 - 2011 Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Lecture Series Seminar. Caplan will discuss how the mapping of the human genome is influencing the shift from a "one size fits all" diagnosis and treatment medicine to a more individualized approach. Read more...

January 19, 2011
Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis Raises Clinical, Ethical Challenges
(From Medscape Medical News) Prenatal genetic testing has taken a new leap forward thanks to studies by separate groups in the United States and Hong Kong showing that thousands of loci in the fetal genome can be analyzed from a 10-mL sample of maternal blood.
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Another source of ethical concern is the fact that NIPD testing can be performed earlier in pregnancy. "That may lead people to feel more comfortable about ending a pregnancy for whatever reason they may have," commented Arthur L. Caplan, PhD. Read more...

January 19, 2011
Sargent Shriver: Bioethics Pioneer
(From science progress) "Among the many reasons to remember Sargent Shriver -- war hero, presidential adviser, Peace Corps founder, vice presidential candidate -- there is one that few may know about: pioneer of bioethics. " -- University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Jonathan Moreno. Read more...

January 19, 2011
Does Steve Jobs Have a Right to Privacy?
(From Yahoo! News) As Apple announces blowout earnings, its secretive CEO is once again demanding privacy to deal with his illness. Do shareholders deserve full disclosure?
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For Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, “The ethics are clear: he has no obligation to say anything.” Read more...

January 19, 2011
Bill would make Coloradans organ donors by default
(From The Wall Street Journal) Some Colorado lawmakers say their state should be the first one where people become organ donors by default, even though other states' efforts have been halted by worries about making such a personal decision automatic.
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"The demand for organs is growing so fast that even if we do this, we're not going to meet the shortage," said Caplan, one of the nation's most prominent supporters of opt-out donation programs. Read more...

January 19, 2011
How Did Steve Jobs Get His Liver?
(From Slate) Steve Jobs used his advantages to get a donated liver. Should it have gone to somebody else?
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"Patients who are smart or who have savvy primary care doctors know that different transplant centers follow different rules in deciding who to admit," Arthur Caplan, an expert in the transplant allocation process, observed two years ago. Read more...

January 19, 2011
CONFERENCE:
Privacy? Sensation! A Panel on Celebrity Patients and Psychoanalysts
7:00-9:00pm
Slought Foundation Gallery; 4017 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
Continuing Education credits available.

January 18, 2011
Debate Ensues Over Destruction of Smallpox
(From The Takeaway) The World Health Organization meets Wednesday to try to set a deadline to destroy the last known stocks of Smallpox.
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Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Art Caplan, says that completely eradicating Smallpox is absolutely worthwhile. However, there are fears that an unknown stock may exist or that an outbreak could occur, necessitating the vaccine. Read more...

January 7, 2011
Sisters Leave Prison Under Kidney Sharing Deal
(From CBS News) Two imprisoned sisters whose life sentences were suspended on the condition that one donates a kidney to the other have been released from a Mississippi prison.
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The condition could be interpreted as trading an organ for freedom, which could violate federal laws against selling organs, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

January 5, 2011
Scientist haunted by misuse of drugs he invented
(From msnbc.com) David Nichols studies the way psychedelic drugs act in the brains of rats. But he is haunted by how humans hijack his work to make street drugs, sometimes causing overdose deaths.
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University of Pennsylvania bioethicist and msnbc.com contributor Art Caplan said there are times when you can share too much scientific information -- with nuclear weapons, biological weapons and the like -- despite the desire for open research. Read more...

December 31, 2010
Scott Sisters Kidney Donation Threatens Organ Transplant Laws
(From abc News) As jubilant supporters await the release of Gladys and Jamie Scott, who brokered a bargain with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to get early prison release by undergoing an organ transplant, medical ethicists are crying foul.
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"As soon as the governor began throwing around commutation -- getting out of her prison sentence -- he began to undercut the ethical framework," said Dr. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

December 30, 2010
Dialysis payment program is costly in too many ways
(From msnbc.com) Experts agreed that the End-Stage Renal Dialysis program might ultimately serve 10,000 people with kidney failure and would cost Medicare about $135 million dollars. They expected many of those on dialysis would return to work -- paying taxes that would help cover the costs involved. The experts were wrong.
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The End-Stage Renal Dialysis program was an act of noble compassion. But ripping off the American people by allowing too many people to receive lousy or unnecessary care is not compassionate at all. It is cruel. Read more...

December 30, 2010
'Conditioned on' kidney donation, sisters' prison release prompts ethics debate
(From The Washington Post) Civil rights activists said Thursday that they welcome [Mississippi Gov.] Barbour's decision [to release the Scott sisters from prison]. But an unconventional aspect of the arrangement is drawing scrutiny from medical ethicists: Barbour said his action was "conditioned on" one sister donating a kidney to the other.
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"In our system of getting kidneys from living people we would never coerce them by saying we hope you do this or else," Caplan said. "You're in a weird situation where the governor is meddling a little bit into what is basically a medical decision first." Read more...

December 29, 2010
'Death panels' alive -- and that's good news for all of us
(From msnbc.com) Anything, including Medicare money, that can encourage doctors, many of whom do not want to have this [end-of-life planning] conversation with their reluctant patients, to do so is a sound, moral and prudent policy. No one is telling you what you must say. No regulation says that you cannot insist that everything possible be done. No bureaucrat is whispering in your doctor’s ear to spin the conversation toward insuring your premature demise.
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If the political conversation over death panels and advance care planning has taught us anything, it is that Washington, D.C., is not the place to talk about end-of-life care--your doctor’s office is. Read more...

December 29, 2010
Editorial: 'Death panel' falsehoods are back
(From the Star Tribune) Advocating end-of-life care planning does not equal end-of-life advocacy. That critical distinction is deliberately buried by irresponsible health care reform opponents in the long, ludicrous debate over nonexistent "death panels.'
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"There's no binding contract that you have to live out. This is not a discussion that you can't revoke, change or alter," said Art Caplan, a renowned University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist. Read more...

December 27, 2010
Is Eradicating Polio a Good Idea?
(From Project Syndicate) [T]here are reasons to wonder whether continued efforts at polio eradication--as opposed to aggressive and effective disease management and control--is the right course to follow.
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Talk of eradication means permanent relief from a disease, and thus permission to let down our guard against it. But the consequences of replacing vigilance with indifference regarding polio are too risky in today’s world. Read more...

December 22, 2010
CONFERENCE:
Second International Congress Of Bioethics, Tehran, Iran
February 5-7, 2011
Emphasis on Morality, Spirituality and Creationism
Abstract and registration deadline: **December 22, 2010 **
Contact tel: +98 21 44580472
Contact email: info@iranbioethics2011.ir

December 18, 2010
Future lies in development of artificial organs
(Translated into English, from Die Presse in Vienna, Austria) An interview with renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan, author of a study on the organ trade, on the value of human organs.
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The illegal organ market assigns value to human organs with clear prices. What are body parts worth? Read more...

December 16, 2010
Presidential commission urges caution on 'synthetic biology'
(From The Washington Post) The emerging field of "synthetic biology" holds great promise for producing new medicines, cleaning up the environment, and providing alternative energy sources and other benefits, but the U.S. government needs to take precautions to ensure that laboratory-made microbes do not cause unexpected catastrophes, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has concluded in its first report.
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"Synthetic biology, as exemplified by the creation of the first synthetic genome to be injected into a living cell, is a significant breakthrough that holds out great promise," said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania and head of the 13-member commission. Read more...

December 13, 2010
Penn Medicine Establishes Hand Transplant Program
(From a Penn Medicine News Release) Only three other medical centers in the United States have performed hand transplants and only about 50 people in the world have received hand transplants since the first successful operation was performed in France in 1998.
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"Hand transplantation raises difficult and novel ethical challenges. Respect for donors and their families, the selection of recipients and the commitment to informed consent are all essential," said Arthur Caplan, PhD, Director of the Penn Center for Bioethics. "Penn's program has engaged these thorny questions in a careful, deliberate and thoughtful manner so as to try and insure that transplant candidates receive the best and most comprehensive care available anywhere." Read more...

December 1, 2010
Lousy care in prison threatens to undermine recent wins against AIDS
(From msnbc.com) There has been a lot of good news lately in the battle against AIDS. The United Nations declared that the number of new HIV cases worldwide has dropped by a fifth over the past decade.
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So why should you care about convicts with AIDS? Because prisons are perfect breeding grounds for new and deadlier strains of HIV. And you don't want a nastier form of AIDS let out on parole. Read more...

November 24, 2010
Mickey Mantle, America's 'Last Boy'
(From npr) "Some who's read Jane Leavy's meticulous new biography of Mickey Mantle wonder how much we really want to know about our heroes. Her answer: The truth."
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Read more to see an interview with Jane Leavy, author of the new Mickey Mantle biography The Last Boy, and her mention of Center for Bioethics director Art Caplan.

November 19, 2010
Death Panels in Arizona
(From Science Progress) A huge number of Americans are afraid that President Barack Obama's success in enacting health reform legislation means that "death panels" will soon be deciding whether they or their loved ones live or die.
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The only political effort to implement death panels since Obama got his health reform bill passed has been in the state of Arizona. There the Republican-controlled legislature with the approval of GOP Governor Jan “there are headless bodies turning up all over our desert” Brewer has told 98 people waiting for transplants that they must die. Read more...

November 19, 2010
Ethics expert condemns AHCCCS budget cuts
(From KTAR.com) An expert in medical ethics says it is unethical and immoral to deny an organ transplant after it has been offered, as was done by Arizona's health care system for the poor because of budget cuts.
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Dr. Arthur Caplan from the Center for Bio-Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania said there was a lot of talk about "death panels" during the debate over President Barack Obama's health care plan. He said the case of Francisco Felix of Phoenix "is the worst example of a death panel I can think of because you're taking people who could be saved, who relied on a promise that the money would be there to save them, and then telling them that, to balance the budget, you're going to let them die." Read more...

November 18, 2010
When Penn Met Emory--Universities on the Leading Edge: Advancing Dialogue in Bioethics
(From EEAvesdropping) The event, which was the EAA's first in tandem with Penn, followed a two-day meeting at the CDC of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Penn President Amy Gutmann is the commission chair, and Emory President Jim Wagner is vice chair. The evening also marked the first EAA event at the CDC, and if its success is any indication, it won't be the last. Read more...

November 17, 2010
Fewer living-donor kidneys in "opt-out" systems
(From Reuters Health) Countries that have tried to address donor-organ shortages with so-called "presumed-consent" systems do have higher rates of kidney transplantation from deceased donors than other nations, a study published Monday finds. However, researchers conclude, the flip side of this "opt-out" approach may be a lower rate of transplants from living donors.
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"I think this shows there is a nervousness, ethically, about using living donors," Dr. Arthur L. Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Reuters Health. Read more...

November 17, 2010
Arizona Budget Cuts Put Organ Transplants at Risk
(From NPR) In Arizona, 98 low-income patients approved for organ transplants have been told they are no longer getting them because of state budget cuts.
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"To basically renege on what you promised was [going to] be a chance at life is a very, very bitter indictment of the ethics of the Legislature," says Arthur Caplan, head of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

November 17, 2010
Prostate Cancer Treatment: Deciding Who Pays Puts Us All on the Death Panel
(From Politics Daily) A public hearing set for Wednesday in Baltimore should have this as a title: "Like it or not, America, you're on a death panel." Democrat, Republican, progressive, conservative or none of the above -- we're all about to start making decisions about health care resources that will literally be a matter of life and death.
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Arthur Caplan is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is flat-out horrified that Medicare is likely to pay for a treatment for which there is only moderate evidence of modest benefit for so much money. "The country has shown itself almost congenitally unable to deal with evidence as the basis for decision-making about health coverage," he said. Read more...

November 16, 2010
How to think about abortion
(From Salon) The midterm elections resulted in significant gains in the antiabortion political delegation: In the House, there are 44 more antiabortion votes and six in the Senate.
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For choice advocates it raises the question of whether President Obama’s efforts to bridge the divide on the issue remain worth pursuing. His call two years ago at Notre Dame for "open hearts, open minds and fair-minded words" on abortion wasn’t much help in negotiating healthcare reform. Read more...

November 15, 2010
Presidential Bioethics Commission Comes to Penn
(From The Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov-Dec 2010) [Craig Venter announced on May 20, 2010 that] his laboratory had created life. He hailed their creation as "the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer." That same day President Barack Obama sent a letter to [the chair of his Presidential Commission on Bioethical Issues] Penn President Amy Gutmann. The President...requested that the commission deliver its findings to him within six months.
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[During the Commission's public hearings in September, Jonathan] Moreno, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor and a senior fellow at the Penn Center for Bioethics, said that when figuring out how to regulate synthetic biology, the commission should focus on determining "the acceptable worst-case scenario." Read more...

November 14, 2010
99 Minutes - A Life, A Legacy
(From The Charlotte Observer) [T]hey [Shannon and Kip Brooks] tapped away on their laptops, searching for an understanding of the strange birth defect that would kill their [unborn] daughter. Google searches turned up shocking photos of anencephalic babies...Shannon and Kip read the words "incompatible with life." They learned that most parents choose abortion. But they also came across softer images and kinder words.
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With advances in technology and prenatal testing, many parents find themselves facing decisions like the one before Shannon and Kip. The array of tests and choices has "totally revamped what might be considered the moral responsibility of parents," said Art Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist. "Pregnancy has moved from a situation where you had to accept the cards you were dealt... into responsibility for deciding whether or not you're going to have the child," Caplan said. "It's very much an individual thing. It depends on your religious values, background and personal ideas about birth." Read more...

November 9, 2010
Leading Biomedical Ethics Prize Presented to Penn's Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D.
(From PennMedicine News & Publications) Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., the Emanuel and Robert Hart Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania has been selected to receive the Patricia Price Browne Prize in Biomedical Ethics, administered by the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. The $10,000 prize, given every two years, was established to honor the Oklahoma City community leader Patricia Price Browne, by selecting an individual who “demonstrates the highest standards in the medical or professional ethics fields.” Read more...
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Congratulations to Dr. Caplan!

November 7, 2010
A felon, fit to practice? Disgraced doctor gets a second chance
(From stltoday.com) [Dr. Krishnarao V ] Rednam's story is part of a series of investigations by the Post-Dispatch this year into how patients are kept in the dark about problems with their doctors and hospitals, and a disciplinary system that seems geared toward protecting doctors' livelihoods. Rednam's case shows how a doctor can keep practicing medicine even after a felony conviction.
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Patients should be outraged if their medical board has allowed a felon to resume practicing, [Penn's Dr. Art] Caplan said. "Medical treatment depends on being able to trust your physician. You have to be able to share secrets, speak honestly, and talk about sensitive subjects." Read more...

October 28, 2010
Long shadow of the stem-cell ruling
(From Nature) Two months on from the court decision that briefly suspended US federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research, uncertainty still stalks the field. Here a lawyer, an ethicist and a team of bankers warn of effects of this saga that could be felt for years to come.
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Dr. Jonathan Moreno, Center for Bioethics fellow and Interim Director of the Department of Medical Ethics at Penn (the ethicist): Seen in the light of other incidents, cultural and political factors, the torturous tale of hESC research in America is but a more emphatic example of an emerging 'biopolitics.' Read more...

October 27, 2010
Parents shocked to learn examiner kept son's brain
(From CNN Health) Andre and Korisha Shipley were still mourning the death of their 17-year-old son, Jesse, when two months after his funeral, they received shocking news from students of the same Staten Island, New York, high school Jesse had attended. Members of a forensic science club on a field trip to the morgue couldn't believe what they noticed on a cabinet in the medical examiner's lab.
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[University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist Art Caplan] says most people recognize the duty of medical examiners to rule out crime, but that does not justify keeping organs. The state says we're going to take this body and examine it to see what might have happened, but we promise you, we'll give everything back, Caplan says. When you don't do that, you're breaking a basic covenant with society and with families. Read more...

October 26, 2010
Videos from the Open Hearts, Open Minds conference at Princeton University
The abortion-focused conference Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair-Minded Words took place at Princeton on October 15-16. From their website: "A Conference on Life and Choice in the Abortion Debate-- Inspired by President Obama’s call during his Notre Dame address for those on different sides of the abortion issue not only to work together where we agree, but also to engage in 'vigorous debate' with 'open hearts, open minds, and fair minded words.'" See more about the conference, including videos, here.

October 13, 2010
Where's the line between research and marketing?
(From CNN) A weight loss study by Jenny Craig. A survey of sexual health and condom use by Church & Dwight, the company that makes Trojan condoms. Both have earned attention-grabbing headlines recently and raised questions about what constitutes good research practice.
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You have to be wary when there's a direct interest between the funder and the topic being studied, says bioethicist Art Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania. They're unlikely to want to publish it unless they get a positive result that has certain spin that they want to put on the findings to favor the product. That doesn't mean that the science is necessarily bad; it's just that one should have extra caution in interpreting the results, he said. Read more...

October 8, 2010
IVF [in vitro fertilization] is Nobel-worthy, but ethical issues remain
(From the Calgary Herald) Thirty-two years ago the world anxiously held its breath and waited for news of the birth of the first test- tube baby. Both scientists and the public alike were questioning the novel technology that created her, worried that some kind of a monster child with multiple birth defects would emerge. But when Louise Brown was born on July 25, 1978, she was remarkably ordinary. A five-pound, 12-ounce, blond baby girl with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Adorable. Just like every other baby
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According to Arthur Caplan, a well-known American bioethicist, Edward's discoveries will make the issue of designing our descendants . . . trying to create children who are stronger, faster, live longer . . . the biggest issue in the first half of the 21st century. Read more...

October 4, 2010
Robert Edwards wins 2010 Nobel prize in medicine for in-vitro fertilization
(From The Washington Post) Robert G. Edwards's breakthrough development of in vitro fertilization, which led to the birth of the first "test-tube baby," Louise Brown, in 1978, gave humanity the power to do what previously was considered the province of God: create and manipulate human life.
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In exploring the fundamental mechanisms of how human reproduction actually works, Edwards unleashed a social, ethical and cultural tsunami that he could not have predicted and I don't think anyone at the time could have anticipated, said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist. It opened so many doors that I'm not sure we even fully appreciate it today. Read more...

October 4, 2010
US Apologizes for 1940s Guatemala Syphilis Experiments
(From "The Take Away" on NPR) U.S. officials have apologized for shockingly immoral experiments done on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s, in an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin in treating syphilis.
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I was doing what historians do, which is go to archives and read dead people's mail ... I opened the boxes expecting to find something about Tuskegee and the only things were hundreds of pages of reports about what had gone on in Guatemala, says Susan Reverby, who is responsible for publicly exposing the details of this medical testing. Read more...

October 4, 2010
Nobel Prize for Robert Edwards: the controversies behind IVF
(From The Christian Science Monitor) Although in vitro fertilization has brought joy to many families, the Nobel Prize for its co-developer is also a reminder of the bioethical questions raised by IVF technology.
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What Louise Brown meant was, you held her up, all her parts were there, and she smiled, and that ended the ethics criticism, says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Nobel Prize is for the work Edwards did helping the infertile, but [he could also have] unleashed the most controversial technology I can think of, which is, should we use it to design our offspring? Read more...

October 2, 2010
U.S. Apologizes to Guatemala for Syphilis Study
(From The Wall Street Journal) The U.S. apologized Friday for 1940s government-sponsored experiments in which hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers and mentally ill patients were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Read more...

October 1, 2010
Horrific medical tests of past raise concerns for today
(From MSNBC.com) As more research moves outside U.S., are we still exploiting the poor?
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The astounding revelation that U.S. medical researchers intentionally gave Guatemalans gonorrhea and syphilis more than 60 years ago is so horrifying that we want to believe that what happened then could never happen today, says Art Caplan. Read more...

October 1, 2010
Congratulations to our friend, teacher and collaborator in the Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy, Paul Offit MD!
The rotavirus vaccine he co-developed with Merck Sharpe and Dohme--Rotateq--has won the Prix Galien USA 2010 Award for best biotechnology product.
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Rotavirus causes severe gastroenteritis that can be life-threatening in infants and young children in areas where clean water and emergency re-hydration do not exist.
Read more...
and more...

September 28, 2010
How Should We Use Age to Ration Health Care? Lessons from the Case of Kidney Transplantation
(From the Ethics, Public Policy, and Medical Economics Journal) President Obama, Congressional leadership, and corporations have cited finite resources and an expanding cohort of older adults as evidence of the pressing need to reform health care in the United States. Read more...

September 21, 2010

CONFERENCE:
The Science, Ethics and Politics of Vaccine Mandates
AUDIO NOW AVAILABLE!!! (Click here for link)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
9:00 am - 4:45 pm

September 20, 2010
Commentary: Does 'super' salmon pass the sniff test?
(From MSNBC.com) If the FDA gives its approval this week, which there is every reason to suppose it will, these so-called 'super' salmon will soon be available at your local grocery stores and restaurants
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Biotech types call the first genetically engineered fish- a whopper of a salmon- a food breakthrough. Critics call it 'frankenfish' But the ultimate judge should be you, the consumer, says Art Caplan. Read more...

September 16, 2010
Bioethics conference focuses on vaccines
(From the Penn Current) Should healthcare workers be required to get flu vaccines or lose their jobs? Should schools allow unvaccinated students to enroll?...Those are just some of the questions scholars and medical experts intend to address at a bioethics conference to be held at Penn on Sept. 21.
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The issue of vaccines and vaccine mandates has become front-page news in recent months, and many institutions are weighing whether to mandate shots for their workers, says Arthur Caplan, the Emmanuel and Robert Hart Director of Penn's Center for Bioethics and the Sydney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics. Read more...

September 13, 2010
Maximizing the benefits of synthetic biology
(From WHYY) [Dr. Arthur] Caplan will testify at the Philadelphia meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Eventually, the group will make recommendations on policies and ethical boundaries for the field of synthetic biology.
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University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutman is chair of the bioethics commission convened by President Obama.
Gutman: We know some of its [synthetic biology's] potential but most of its potential is down the road, so therefore we can prepare ourselves. That's what the commission wants to do, make recommendations that will maximize benefits and mitigate risks. Read more...

September 6 , 2010
More Philadelphia-area health systems requiring employees to get flu shots
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer) Main Line Health Inc. is taking a much tougher stance, one that is becoming more common in the region and nation: It's requiring employees - and doctors - to get the shot or get fired.
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Penn bioethicist Arthur Caplan says there is no ethical reason not to require employee vaccinations. When workers ask, "Don't I have any rights?" he answers that patient rights trump those of employees. Read more...

September 5, 2010
California doctors run afoul of state board but keep working
(From The Sacramento Bee) Registered sex offenders, doctors who sexually exploit patients and those involved in one very narrow type of insurance fraud must, by law, lose their medical licenses.
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Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics who looked at some disciplinary files at The Bee's request, was alarmed by a settlement that gave a for-profit review board oversight of a controversial cancer doctor's work. Read more...

September 2, 2010
High risk research to find transplant tolerance
(From WHYY) Several years ago, Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, got pulled in to the middle of a complicated problem. A kidney transplant recipient was rejecting his donated organ. Voluntarily, he had taken himself off the immunosuppressant drugs that stop his body from attacking the foreign kidney
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It is that kind of case that is the preliminary experimental basis for finding out that some people can use less drug or some people may not need any drugs. Says Art Caplan Read more...

August 31, 2010
Opinion: U.S. stem cell ruling invites Asian competition
(From MercuryNews.com) Jonathan Moreno says, Embryonic stem cells are still needed as the gold standard for work on other cells that might be made useful for clinical medicine. The consequences of the ongoing legal process for the U.S. economy over the next decade are serious. If this critical research cannot be conducted in our country, then scientists, companies and investors will naturally look for greener pastures. Read more...

August 30, 2010
Most ED patients willing to wait longer to avoid nondoctor care
(From American Medical News) As the use of nurse practitioners and physician assistants increases, a survey urges greater disclosure about who provides care and their level of training.
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Everyone agrees that patients deserve to know who is caring for them and should be allowed to request a physician's care, said Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, associate professor of bioethics and nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Read more...

August 30, 2010
Opinion: Regulating Synthetic Life.
(From The Pennsylvania Gazette) Art Caplan says, The value of life is not imperiled or cheapened by coming to understand how it works any more than an airplane, computer, or satellite is less worthy of admiration-even awe-just because human beings know how they work and how to make them. Read more...

August 28, 2010
The proper ends do justify the means
(From the Lancet) During the Nuremberg trials, convened at the end of World War II, lawyers for the German defendants, politicians accused of crimes against humanity, and physicians accused of euthanasia and barbaric medical experimentation offered the rationale of "Kriegsraison" to exculpate their clients.
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War, as the Nuremberg judges rightly concluded, does not mean all ethical bets are off, Says Art Caplan. Read more...

August 25, 2010
Are You Ever Too Old to Have a Baby? The Ethical Challenges of Older Women Using Infertility Services
(From the Seminars in Reproductive Medicine Journal) Oocyte donation, new drugs, the technique of single intracytoplasmic sperm injection, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) afford older women the opportunity to give birth well beyond the natural limit imposed by menopause, and more and more women are taking advantage of this opportunity. Read more...

August 25, 2010
Katrina patient deaths still a mystery
(From CNN) Families seek justice after relatives mysteriously die at a New Orleans hospital.
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Art Caplan reports that in reading the record, I think that they (doctors) assisted the death, involuntarily, of these patients. Watch the video...

August 24, 2010
Opinion: Stem cell reversal: Ill Americans deserve better. District court judge blocks federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
(From MSNBC,com) Art Caplan says The judge's decision, as controversial as it is in a lousy case, should remind us that you cannot have it both ways. Either you stop mindlessly enacting language that can be seen as prohibiting all embryonic stem cell research, or you risk not having federally funded embryonic stem cell research. Read more...

August 19, 2010
Opinion: Who should decide when care is futile? A New Jersey case raises pressing policy questions.
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer) Art Caplan asks should doctors ever be able to decide that medical care is futile and stop treatment regardless of the wishes of a patient's family, friends, or guardians?
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Today these cases are almost always worked out quietly, without lawsuits. In my experience, the hospital usually backs down, and care goes on. But that may not be the right answer in every case. Read more...

August 17, 2010
NJ court rightly urges Legislature to act on end-of-life issues
(From Star-Ledger) Bioethics experts have long advocated for lawmakers to create an independent committee to handle end-of-life disputes between families and hospitals.
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We need a more deliberate and thoughtful method for dealing with end-of-life care, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia. The court is calling on the Legislature to do it. Read more...

August 14, 2010
The Art of Medicine. Medical ethics and the art of cardiovascular medicine
(From the Lancet) Studies have documented that cardiology journals and textbooks contained the fewest references to ethical issues of any medical subspecialty.
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Perhaps this finding isn’t that surprising. The academic disciplines of medical ethics and cardiology are quite different, says Dr. James N. Kirkpatrick. Read more...

August 12, 2010
Sharing of Data Leads to Progress on Alzheimer's
(From The New York Times) More than 100 studies are under way to test drugs that might slow or stop the disease. And the collaboration is already serving as a model for similar efforts against Parkinson's disease.
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The development of reliable and valid measures of Alzheimer's disease requires such large science with such limited returns on the investment...said Dr. Jason Karlawish, an Alzheimer's researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

August 11, 2010
Would You Take the New Alzheimer's Test?
(From The New Republic) On Tuesday, a study published in the Annals of Neurology suggested that a spinal tap can detect, with nearly perfect accuracy, development of Alzheimer's years before the symptoms start to appear.
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This development is a sign of how elegant the power of detection in modern medicine has become. But it's also a reminder of how clumsy the power of treatment remains. Says Jonathan Moreno. Read more...

August 3, 2010
Pentagon questions drug study on troops
(From The Boston Globe) The Department of Defense is investigating whether 80 wounded American service members in Iraq were improperly used as subjects in a test of a possible treatment for brain injuries...
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Medical tests on human subjects must follow strict rules in their design and execution to protect the safety of patients, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

August 2, 2010
ALS patient: 'Wish to do good thing'
(From CNN) Don Lemon talks with a terminally-ill patient who wants to donate his organs while they are still healthy.
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Art Caplan says that doctors involved in transplants cannot be the cause of death of the patient. Watch the video...

July 2010
Congratulations to Senior Fellow, Martha J. Farah, PhD
Announcing the publication of Neuroethics: An Introduction with Readings. Available in July 2010, Dr. Farah provides an up-to-date introduction to neuroethics, combining carefully selected and abridged readings with original overviews of the neuroethical issues and expositions of the neuroscience behind those issues.

July 29, 2010
Patients, hospitals wrestle over tumor tissue
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer) Individualized care is spurring higher demand for tissue, creating nascent tensions between research and treatment. That's making tumor cells a hot commodity, one that patients - bewildered and terrified by a life-threatening diagnosis - often give little thought.
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Penn bioethicist Arthur Caplan thinks hospitals will have to reserve more tissue for patient use. "The notion of 'I-might-want-it-myself' has just emerged in the last few years," he said. "There's no point in having personalized medicine and mapping the genome if you can't get your tissues shipped." Read more...

July 26, 2010
Pertussis epidemic in California linked to vaccination gaps
(From American Medical News) With California on pace to have its worst pertussis outbreak in 50 years, local and national health officials are working to determine what sparked the resurgence of the vaccine-preventable disease and how transmission can be slowed.
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Any physician who does not offer needed vaccines must have some discussion with the patient or child's parent about their alternatives, said Arthur Caplan, PhD, a bioethics professor in the Dept. of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He also is director of the university's Center for Bioethics. Read more...

July 23, 2010
Personalized gene tests are bogus? Of course they are
(From MSNBC.com) Art Caplan writes that send-away DNA spit tests won't give any answers worth having
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None of this should come as a surprise. The only surprise is that it has taken Congress and the federal Food and Drug Administration so long to go after what is nothing more than highly advertised genetic scamming. Read more...

July 20, 2010
Panelist Who Backed Avandia Gets Fees From Glaxo
(From the Wall Street Journal) One of the panelists who voted in favor of the diabetes drug Avandia at a Food and Drug Administration advisory meeting last week is a paid speaker for the drug's maker, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, according to the company and its records. Read more...

June 21, 2010
Congratulations to Associate Fellow, Dr. David Perlman
Dr. Perlman has received an Educational Initiative award for the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, for his project entitled "Crucial Choices Live: Use of Branching Logic Ethics Cases to Teach and Evaluate Critical Thinking Skills in Undergraduate Nursing Students."

June 14, 2010
Should People Be Paid to Stay Healthy: Room for Debate
(From the NYTimes.com) Do monetary incentives work? Do such payments raise ethical questions or alter the doctor-patient relationship?
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Arthur Caplan writes "We are in the midst of a cost care explosion in health care and the new zealots of virtue know why - sin. Or more specifically, your sin - be it eating too much, drinking to excess, unprotected sex or smoking." Read more...

June 10, 2010
Lifting the Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood
(From The Take Away) Gay men have been banned from donting blood since 1983. But now, a group of senators led by John Kerry are petitioning to put an end to the 27-year-old ban. Director of the Center, Art Caplan, comments. To read more, or listen, click here...

June 1, 2010
Emeritus Senior Fellow Renee Fox awarded honorary degree
(From the Harvard gazette) Harvard conferred 10 honorary degrees this year, including an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Renee Fox. Read more...

May 27, 2010
Craig Venter on Synthetic Life
(From wbur.org) One of the men who first sequenced the human genome, Venter says he has created synthetic life. Listen to the show here...

May 26, 2010
MBE student Ilene Albala co-authors an article titled "The Evolution of Consent Forms for Research: A Quarter Century of Changes"
(From IRB: Ethics and Human Research) Ilene Albala, Margaret Doyle, and Paul S. Appelbaum write that "[c]onsent forms play a critical role in informing prospective research participants about the purpose and potential risks and benefits of clinical trials and other research studies. Yet as currently formulated, they are far from ideal in conveying this information." Read the article here....

May 20, 2010
Life after the synthetic cell
In a column for Nature Magazine, Dr. Art Caplan comments on "The end of vitalism."
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Venter and his colleagues have shown that the material world can be manipulated to produce what we recognize as life. In doing so they bring to an end a debate about the nature of life that has lasted thousands of years. Read more...

May 20, 2010
Now ain't that special? The implications of creating the first synthetic bacteria
(From Scientific American Magazine) Dr. Arthur Caplan writes that for many, the wondrous nature of what permits something to be alive has been a mystery that science never, ever could penetrate. Life is sacred, special, ineffable and beyond human understanding. Except it isn't
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Is life special, so special that we cannot understand it, much less create it? Are living things endowed with some sort of special power, force or property that distinguishes the inorganic from the organic, the living from the dead? Read More...

May 20, 2010
DO SYNTHETIC BIOLOGISTS PLAY GOD?
(From Discovery News) Dr. Arthur Caplan writes that It is not clear that we cannot control new life forms. But it surely is clear that we would be prudent to both create mechanisms for monitoring what is going on and then for controlling who has access to new living things as well as accountability as to where they are allowed to roam.
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If mankind creates a microbial life form are we playing God? And, if we are, is that wrong? There is a lot going on in the emerging field of synthetic biology that makes answering these questions very important. Read More...

May 20, 2010
First synthetic life form holds promise, peril
(From MSNBC.com) In a commentary, Dr. Art Caplan writes that scientists have crafted what they're calling a "synthetic cell" from a set of genes they decoded, artificially combined and then stuck into the cored-out remains of another bacterial cell.
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Most have concluded that the wondrous nature of what permits life is a mystery that science never could penetrate. Until now. Read More...

May 16, 2010
Beware of genetic testing
(From The Philadelphia Inquirer) Dr. Arthur Caplan writes that the push to get you to spend money on genetic testing has also reached your local drugstore. Walgreens is entering into an agreement with Pathway Genomics to sell Pathway's Insight genetic test kit.
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Type genetic testing on an Internet search engine and then hang on. You will be in for quite a ride. There is an endless parade of companies touting genetic tests for everything, including determining whether your kid has the potential to be a star athlete... Read More...

May 12, 2010
New Jersey needs independent panel to resolve disputes over end-of-life care
(From New Jersey Star-Ledger) ... the legal dispute continues-exposing a gap in New Jersey law when it comes to end-of life care.
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Dr. Arthur Caplan comments..."When the line between doing good and causing harm is crossed, then doctors, in consultation with an independent ethics committee, ought have the authority given to them by the courts of New Jersey to withdraw interventions" Read More...

May 11, 2010
Cash flows in to HHC nursing homes, care lags
(From IndyStar.com) What happened when Health and Hospital Corp., the public agency that runs Wishard, got into the nursing home business?
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"As a general moral principle when dealing with vulnerable persons, your first duty is to make sure they have adequate protection and services that meet their needs before expanding into other areas," said Arthur Caplan, a Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Read More...

May 9, 2010
Over 40 and still seeking an infant
(From Bucks County Courier Times) With people living longer and healthier, older parenthood is now more socially acceptable.
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While science lets women temporarily suspend their biological clocks, the elephant-in-the-room question is should the technology be used, said Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

May 3, 2010
Should Laws Push for Organ Donation?
(From The New York Times ) A New York assemblyman has introduced a bill aimed at making the state the first to presume people want to donate their organs unless they specifically say otherwise.
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Dr. Arthur Caplan says..."Consent and altruism remain core values of organ donation - only the emphasis changes from the presumption of a 'no' to one of 'yes'"
Read more...

April 28, 2010
Why Homeless Hero Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax Died on NYC Street
(From ABC News Medical Unit) Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, 31, collapsed on a Queens, N.Y., sidewalk after he was stabbed several times by a mugger, but his motionless form didn't inspire a single passerby to help or to alert the police -- until he had been lying there bleeding to death for more than an hour.
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Art Caplan comments..."When you don't witness the assault, you are less inclined to help because you're not sure what's going on when a person is lying there," he said. Read more...

April 26, 2010
Extra: Is Using Adderall Like Using Steroids?
(From CBS) Should there be a "no smart drugs" pledge for college students? Katie Couric discussed the issue with a group of undergrads at the University of Kentucky, some of whom have tried the drugs while some have not. Plus, UPenn Bioethics Professor Dr. Arthur Caplan tells Katie Couric why college administrators are ignoring Adderall use. View YouTube video here...

April 21, 2010
Rule changes on hospital visitations
(From PRI.org) Medical rights for gay couples expanded with President Obama's recently announced rules changes aimed at hospital visiting rights.
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Art Caplan, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania says the president's edict is enormously important. Read more...

April 15, 2010
Bioethicist Art Caplan on why it's time for the hard conversations about health care
(From WHYY Radio) According to our guest, Penn bioethicist Art Caplan, despite the passage of historic health care legislation, the discussions about health care have only just begun. He joins guest host Tracey Matisak to share his thoughts on the bill and the challenges ahead. Read more...

April 14, 2010
3-Parent Embryos Could Prevent Disease, But Raise Ethical Issues
(From Wired.com) Researchers have produced human embryos containing DNA from three people, a biotechnological proof-of-principle with profound medical and ethical implications.
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“I think this strategy for handling mitochondrial disease is fascinating, important and ethical, but it certainly crosses the line of engineering genes,” said Art Caplan. Read more...

April 13, 2010
End-of-Life Care: A Debate
Rising budget deficits have become a principal concern of the American people in recent months, and are already a cause celebre for politicians in both parties ahead of this year's midterm elections. Watch this debate, sponsored by the Miller Center for Public Affairs, here...

April 9, 2010
20 years after death, Ryan White's legacy lives on
(From IndySstar.com) Indiana teen put face on AIDS during his battle with disease. In 1984, the soft-spoken Indiana schoolboy was diagnosed with a new disease that had modern medicine stumped and America simmering on the verge of panic.
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Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the mystery of AIDS fostered an "abject terror" at the time."There was little or no understanding how HIV was transferred, who was at risk or what you could do to protect yourself," Caplan said. "That type of nervousness about a disease that was deadly really led to the reaction you saw in Indiana." Read more...

April 7, 2010
Senior Fellow, Anita L. Allen, has been appointed to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
The Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. It will work with the goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner. These candidates will join the current Chair, Amy Gutmann, and Vice-Chair, James Wagner, as Members on the Commission.
Read more about the Presidential Commission here...

April 4, 2010
Fifth Period: Life and Death Decision-making
(From Miller-McCune) Ethical quandaries at the nexus of science, technology and society are making it into high school curricula.
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Siska Brutsaert’s biology students had gotten down the basics of stem cells, the early-stage cells many scientists believe could one day treat a variety of diseases. So in January, she asked them to apply that knowledge to a real-world bioethical dilemma: Was it acceptable to use the cells if they were taken from human embryos? Why or why not? Read more...

April 2, 2010
Presidential smoking = public health opportunity
(From Chicago Tribune) President Barack Obama's ongoing battle with cigarettes provides an enormous public health opportunity to do something to reduce the 400,000 American lives lost every year to smoking. But there is at least one big difference between Obama and most Americans when it comes to quitting: His access to enlightened medical advice helped him achieve and apparently sustain a drastic reduction in his smoking. Read more...

April 1, 2010
Penn Med, HUP see reform's effects
(From the DP.com) With the new health care legislation passed and signed into law, the direction Penn School of Medicine students choose to take may change over the coming years.“More medical students will start to think about practicing in one of the primary care specialties,” Center for Bioethics Director Arthur Caplan said Read more...

March 31, 2010
Drug Companies Will Post Doctor Payments
As part of the package of health care rules that passed last week, pharmaceutical companies will have to disclose how much they pay doctors for various services..... Bioethicist Art Caplan says the requirement will help expose conflicts. Read more...

March 31, 2010
The Ethics of Selling Organs
(From WHYY Radio) Nearly 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ transplants. Many will die while they wait...This hour, bioethicists Scott Halpern of the University of Pennsylvania and David Magnus of Stanford University discuss legalizing the sale of organs. Listen here...

March 30, 2010
Bloggingheads: Neurowar
(From NY Times) Bloggingheads on military neuroscience: A commentary on Jonathan Moreno and Mind Wars. John Horgan, of the Stevens Center for Science Writings and George Johnson, author of "The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments," debate applying neuroscience to warfare. Read more...

March 22, 2010
Does the U.S. Need to Ration Costly End-of-Life Care?
With skyrocketing Medicare costs contributing to record-setting budget deficits, does the United States need to ration costly end-of-life care? This compelling topic will be the focus of an upcoming debate produced by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, in partnership with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and The National Press Club.
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The debate will take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, March 24 at 7:00 pm ET. It will be webcast live at www.millercenter.org and air later on PBS stations across the country.

March 22, 2010
Health reform a hot topic in bioethics circles
(From marketwatch.com) As overhaul appears near, bioethicists agree access is crucial.
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Arthur Caplan said: "We can't afford to wait. The access problems are ridiculous," he said. "That you have 50 million uninsured people is the worst kind of rationing." Read more...

March 17, 2010
Red Tape Around Stem Cells?
(From scienceprogress.org) Jonathan Moreno writes that process underpins ethical policy
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A year ago President Barack Obama signed an executive order overturning President Bush’s policy on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and ordering the National Institutes of Health to develop an ethically acceptable policy. Read more...

March 15, 2010
Project to Get Transplant Organs from ER Patients Raises Ethics Questions
(From The Washington Post) In the hope of expanding a controversial form of organ donation into emergency rooms around the United States, a federally funded project has begun trying to obtain kidneys, livers and possibly other body parts from car-accident victims, heart-attack fatalities and other urgent-care patients. Arthur Caplan comments. Read more...

March 10, 2010
Life at All Costs: Part Two, The Choices
(From The Fiscal Times) Science and technology could make medical miracles a common occurrence, but at what price?
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Bioethicist Arthur Caplan is a big man with a gravelly voice and a reputation for blunt characterizations about health care conundrums. Speaking on the phone from his office at the University of Pennsylvania, he recently posed a question: "What would you do if your mother needed an expensive, painful operation that had only a one in a million chance of saving her?" Read more...

March 10, 2010
Ban urges students to find common ground at UN forum on bioethics
(From UN News Centre) Bioethics increasingly has implications for many areas of people’s lives and it is important to identify common ground around which controversial discussions can take place, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told hundreds of students today in New York. Read more...

February 24, 2010
Sperm Retrieval: Mother Creates Life After Death
(From abcnews.com) Nikolas Evans Murdered at 21, Now His Mother Considers Surrogates to Birth Her Grandchild
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But according to Art Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, "It's one thing to save a life and another thing to make a new one." Read more...

February 24, 2010
Lawsuit argues lives would be saved if bone marrow donors were paid
(From USA Today) "... a lawsuit filed in federal court in California argues that too many patients are dying for want of a match. To encourage more prospective donors to sign up, the plaintiffs propose compensating bone marrow donors, a violation of the National Organ Transplant Act..." University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan is skeptical. Read more...

February 23, 2010
A Murder Suspect's Worth to Science
(From nytimes.com) Amy Bishop, neuroscientist, inventor, murder suspect, has become bigger than life, a symbol for those who think that genius is close to madness, or that women cannot get ahead in science, or that tenure systems in universities are brutalizing - or even that progress against fatal diseases is so important that someone like Dr. Bishop should be set free to pursue cures.
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“There’s a common-folk psychology,” Dr. Jonathan Moreno said. “If you are that smart, you know the difference between right and wrong.” Read more...

February 22, 2010
Paralyzed Belgian patient can't talk after all
(From The Seattle Times) It was heralded as a medical miracle. After spending more than two decades in a vegetative state, Rom Houben, a Belgian man in his mid-40s, was suddenly able to communicate, news reports trumpeted last November. ... Houben's doctors said it seemed to be genuine. Until now.
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"It's like using an Ouija board," Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said Friday. "It was too good to be true and we shouldn't have believed it." Read more...

February 22, 2010
Rx: Conflict of Interest
(From philly.com) Cephalon, according to its Web site, paid 936 health-care professionals, mostly doctors, more than $9.1 million last year for speaking fees and consulting services.
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"Disclosure is fine, but we have to take it a step further and get these relationships [between doctors and drug companies] off the table," said Arthur L. Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. Read more...

February 19, 2010
Disability-free world may not be a better place
(From msnbc.com) Arthur Caplan writes that screening means fewer Down babies, but are we missing out?
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On a trip to Ireland a few years ago, I was struck by a number of faces among the crowds. They were children with the tell-tale look of Down Syndrome. What struck me was the realization that I hardly ever see these young faces out on the street in the United States. Read more....

February 19, 2010
Payment for tissue donors becomes an issue
(From the Baltimore Sun) Woman who died 60 years ago gave cells that made scientific advances possible. Arthur Caplan comments that "[w]hile some people think consent laws need strengthening, the majority of the public doesn't know anything about tissue storage." Read more...

February 19, 2010
Fewer Babies with Genetic Defects Being Born
(From the Associated Press) Arthur Caplan comments on the apparent decline of some of mankind's most devastating inherited diseases, because more people are using genetic testing to decide whether to have children. Watch video...

February 18, 2010
The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics honored with 2009 PROSE Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence
The American Association of Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing division has honored The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics with its 2009 PROSE Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence in the category of a Single-Volume Reference book in Science. You can find out more about the PROSE awards and see all the honored books here...
Congratulations to the editors, Drs. Ravitsky, Fiester, and Caplan, and all of the contributing authors for this wonderful achievement.

February 18, 2010
The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics named Outstanding Academic Title for 2009!
CHOICE magazine -- published by the American Library Association and most research librarians' go-to source for reviews of scholarly and reference books -- named The Penn Center Guide as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009. Congratulations!

February 17, 2010
Coma patient's communication wasn't real, neurologist says
(From chicagotribune.com) Tests show speech therapist, not crash victim, was typing out thoughts in video seen around the world.
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Bioethicist Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said cases like Houben's can be enormously damaging, offering false hope to relatives of patients in comas and others with severe brain injuries. Read more...

February 16, 2010
Colloquium talk now available online!
The recording of Richard Bonnie's colloquium talk: "Challenges of Mental Health Law Reform: The Virginia Experience," is now available online. Listen here...

February 16, 2010
Bioethicist cautions new neck vein link to MS
(From thedailyplanet.com) The University of Buffalo has released the preliminary results of a study to determine if narrow neck veins are a risk factor for developing multiple sclerosis.
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Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, Arthur Caplan, told TheDailyPlanet.com selling a diagnostic test before the research has been published or peer reviewed is unethical and a conflict of interest. Read more...

February 15, 2010
Physician attitudes towards influenza immunization and vaccine mandates
Arthur Caplan coauthored an article in Vaccine with Jennifer deSante, Frances Shofer and Amy Behrman, in which they surveyed physicians' opinions and acceptance of influenza immunization. Read more...

February 14, 2010
When can fetus feel pain?
(From Omaha.com)A bill before the Nebraska Legislature, the Abortion Pain Prevention Act, would ban abortions 20 weeks after conception, because it's at that point, Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood says, that a fetus begins to sense pain. However, there is still disagreement among scientists and doctors over this.
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Arthur Caplan, professor of medical ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that “on the whole, I don't think science and medicine can be drawn in to support” Flood's bill. Read more...

February 13, 2010
Communicating with those trapped within their brains
(From Der Spiegel) 23 years after a car accident left Rom Houben in an persistent vegetative state, Steven Laureys thought he had found a way to communicate with Mr. Houben. However, recent tests confirm that facilitated communication did not work for Mr. Houben.
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"Laureys has now carried out those tests, and his results hold that it wasn't Houben doing the writing after all.... In her effort to help the patient express himself, it would seem that the speech therapist had unwittingly assumed control." Read more...

February 12, 2010
Gay Men & Donating Blood
The current FDA policy excluding gay men from giving blood is absurd and flies in the face of both need and science. Dr. Caplan argues this policy excludes millions from giving blood during growing blood shortages. He explains in this edition of The Bioethics Channel with Lorell LaBoube. Listen here...

February 12, 2010
Blood Stains - Why an Absurd Policy Banning Gay Men as Blood Donors Has Not Been Changed
Dr. Arthur Caplan writes about FDA prohibitions on blood donation in the The American Journal of Bioethics. Read more...

February 5, 2010
Neuropsychiatry Research Training Program - postdoctoral appointment available
The Department of Psychiatry, Neuropsychiatry Section is currently accepting applications for a postdoctoral appointment on an NIH Training Grant. For more information, download the posting here...

February 5, 2010
Prophylactic Bariatric Surgery
Associate Fellow, Angelique Reitsma, comments on ethics of prophylactic bariatric surgery.
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"Even after a lengthy debate between bioethicists, physicians and surgeons and a plethora of publications, there currently are no formal, federal regulations that apply specifically to surgical innovation" Read more...

February 4, 2010
Watch Davos 2010 - IdeasLab with University of Pennsylvania & The Wharton School - Arthur Caplan
Dr. Caplan presented a lecture on vaccine ethics at Davos World Economic Forum. Available on YouTube here...

February 4, 2010
How a zealot's word led us astray on autism
(From msnbc.com) Arthur Caplan writes that a tiny, flawed vaccine study is a case study in biased medicine.
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A dozen years ago, a British physician named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet that did immeasurable harm to children. Wakefield, who back in 1998 was working at London's Royal Free Hospital, claimed in the article that the vaccination of 12 children with measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused a reaction in their bowels that caused autism. Read more...

February 4, 2010
The government has your baby's DNA
(From CNN.com) "Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it's often done without the parents' consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center."
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Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says he understands why states don't first ask permission to screen babies for genetic diseases. "It's paternalistic, but the state has an overriding interest in protecting these babies," he says. Read more...

February 3, 2010
Young Scholar Award in Perinatal Bioethics
The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and the March of Dimes are pleased to announce the annual Young Scholar Award in Perinatal Bioethics.
Submit an abstract to the ASBH Call for Proposals on the ASBH Web site no later than March 3, 2010 More info...

February 3, 2010
Medical groups assail patenting of human genes
In a case that could have far-reaching implications for medical research and health care based on genetics, groups representing thousands of doctors, scientists and patients went to court Tuesday to argue that no one should be able to patent human genes, a question that has long been controversial in scientific circles.
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It really comes down to a question of practicality, says Jonathan Moreno, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "Is the current intellectual property system the best arrangement between striking the balance between good science, public health and efficiency?" Read more...

February 3, 2010
A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn't Really a Gift
(From nytimes.com) In her new book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” journalist Rebecca Skloot writes about the cells Henrietta Lacks "unknowingly left to science."
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Rebecca Skloot is presenting an informal discussion at the Center for Bioethics on February 15, 2010, 12pm

February 2, 2010
Director Arthur Caplan has been appointed to the editorial boards of the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal and the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

February 1, 2010
Moral Distress: A Growing Problem in the Health Professions?
(From The Hastings Center Report) Senior Fellow Connie Ulrich, along with Ann B. Hamric and Christine Grady writes that "reducing moral distress calls for mechanisms to support health care providers who have limited time to focus on ethical issues but know that the intensity of these events lingers." Read more...

January 26, 2010
Science, Human Rights and the Military
(From Miller-McCune.com) The military commonly enlists science in its efforts. But when science is humanity, the relationship gets a little stickier.
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Neuroscience and national security go together somewhat uneasily. Stick the two in a single sentence, and University of Pennsylvania historian Jonathan Moreno starts getting e-mails from all kinds of people who are sure they've been brainwashed by the CIA. (It might not help his inbox that he wrote a book called Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense.) Read more...

January 26, 2010
Associate Fellow honored
Associate Fellow, Caryn Lerman, PhD was recently elected President of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, an international scientific organization whose members study nicotine addiction, from the molecular to societal levels. She was also appointed to the National Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA) Council. More info...

January 20, 2010
Will China Achieve Science Supremacy? Room for Debate
(From the NYTimes.com) How likely is it that China will become the world's leader in science and technology, and what are the impediments to creating a research climate that would allow scientists to thrive?
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Jonathan Moreno writes that " The U.S. should emphasize scientific exchange through personal relationships." Read more...

January 19, 2010
David Casarett, MD, Senior Fellow, publishes new book, Last Acts: Discovering Possibility and Opportunity at the End of Life
What would you do if you only had a few days to live? A few hours? A few minutes? And what should you do? How can you make the best possible use of whatever time you have left? What is the right answer for each of us? In Last Acts, Dr. David Casarett explores these and many other questions as he considers how we use our time when that time is limited. Read more...

January 13, 2010
Bioethics books selected as Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice magazine
Two books in the Basic Bioethics series, Bedau and Parke's THE ETHICS OF PROTOCELLS and Lynch's CONFLICTS OF CONSCIENCE IN HEALTH CARE, have won a Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Title awards for 2009. Dr. Art Caplan is the academic editor of the Basic Bioethics series.

Eight MIT Press books were chosen as Outstanding Academic Titles 2009 in this month's issue of Choice magazine (the publication of the American Library Association):

Fairlie/Race and Entrepreneurial Success
Turbak/Design Concepts in Programming Languages
Blatt/America's Food
Lynch/Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care
Neumark/Minimum Wages
Price-Smith/Contagion and Chaos
Nitsche/Video Game Spaces
Bedau/The Ethics of Protocells

This year's Outstanding Academic Title list includes 652 books and electronic resources chosen by the Choice editorial staff from among the 7065 titles reviewed by Choice during the past year. The works are selected for their "excellence in scholarship and presentation, the significance of their contribution to the field, and their value as important - often the first - treatment of their subject". These titles represent less than three percent of the more than 25,000 titles that were submitted to Choice for review this past year.

January 12, 2010
Colloquium Talk Now Available Online
Dr. Jennifer Prah Ruger's colloquium talk from January 7, 2010: "Health and Social Justice," is now available online. Listen here...

January 12, 2010
The UPenn Center for Bioethics is now on iTunes U!
the Center for Bioethics is now posting video/audio content from our colloquium speakers on Penn on iTunes U. This is a free service to our students, alumni, community, all you need is iTunes on your computer. Everything there is free to download. You can also click on the 'subscribe' button, and you will be receive automatic downloads through iTunes when new material has been uploaded.

To access, listen, and download the past colloquium talks:
1. Go to: http://www.upenn.edu/itunes/
2. Click on 'take me to Penn on iTunes U'
3. When your iTunes U opens, scroll down to 'In the Schools'
4. Click on 'School of Medicine'
5. Scroll down to 'School of Medicine Educational Material'
6. Click on 'Center for Bioethics'

January 7, 2010
Rude Awakening
How the media frenzy around a Belgian man misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state came to haunt the doctor who treated him.
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Art Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist, knows stories like these can make families afraid to withdraw care and donate organs even when doctors reliably predict a poor outcome for a patient. The moment he saw tape of Houben's aide moving his fingers across a computer keyboard, he sensed trouble, Caplan says. Read more...

January 7, 2010
Progress in Bioethics: A new anthology edited by Jonathan Moreno and Sam Berger
After more than a decade of conservatives' dominance of public bioethical debate, progressive bioethics is finally in ascendance. Editors Jonathan Moreno and Sam Berger map this new landscape with Progress in Bioethics, an anthology featuring contributions from progressive and nonprogressive bioethicists alike. They tackle substantive policy issues such as stem cell research, conscience clauses, and health care reform. Watch video...

January 6, 2010
Bioethical challenges ahead
Nationally renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan reviews the ethical challenges of the past decade, and the controversies he thinks will emerge in 2010 and beyond. Listen here...

December 29, 2009
The Baby Market: Room for Debate
(From the NYTimes.com) As surrogacy becomes more common, should contracts for babies be subject to the strict vetting applied to adoption? Is there a public interest in regulating the process and deciding who can obtain a baby through surrogacy? Or is this a reproductive right that should be left to the private realm?
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Art Caplan writes: "There are more laws in the United States governing the breeding of dogs, cats, fish, exotic animals, and wild game species than exist with respect to the use of surrogates and reproductive technologies to make people." Read more...

December 2009
Back From the Dead
(From Philadelphia Magazine) A Penn doctor is reviving patients like Chris Brooks - a 23-year-old who was clinically dead for 35 minutes - through a radical new procedure for victims of sudden cardiac arrest. But his work also raises a bold question: When are we really dead?
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Caplan foresees lots of issues (who gets cooled? Who doesn't? Who decides?), but the biggest is this: rethinking the protocols about when to pronounce people dead if technology like cooling is available. "It's a game changer," he says. Read more...

December 28, 2009
Cloning? Who cares? Dilemmas shift in decade
(From msnbc.com) Art Caplan writes that the former high-tech worries earlier in the decade have shifted to more mundane threats.
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Way back at the start of this decade, three high-tech, almost exotic issues dominated the bioethical landscape: cloning, embryonic stem cell research and bioterrorism. ... As we enter 2010, however, three mundane and low-tech issues are overshadowing the bioethical discourse: health reform, coping with the flu and what to do about obesity. Read more...

December 23, 2009
Quadriplegic Mother Fights for Custody of Son
(From ABC News) Art Caplan and Anita Allen comment on the case of a father who claims his child's mother is unable to parent because of her physical disability.
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A quadriplegic mother is fighting her ex-boyfriend in court to retain custody of their son. The ex-boyfriend claims she cannot be a competent mother because of her disability. It is a case that touches on important questions about the rights of the disabled. Read more...

December 4, 2009
Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull
(From CNN) Simple DNA tests may reveal a family's medical history...Art Caplan is concerned about unnecessary anxiety and advocates genetic privacy. Watch video here...

November 25, 2009
Coherent after coma? Not so sure
(From msnbc.com) Art Caplan writes that for a Belgian man who was thought to be in a coma, 23 years without contact would have been hell on earth. Read more...

November 23, 2009
‘Concierge' care is just another word for bribe
(From msnbc.com) Art Caplan writes that getting a doctor's time and attention shouldn't require a premium fee. Read more...

November 23, 2009
GOP: Breast exams show 'rationing'
(From politico.com) Confusing new recommendations on mammograms and pap smears are playing into public fears about the increased role the federal government would play in health care if President Barack Obama's health care reform efforts are successful.
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"You do want the background trust to remain solid with respect to serious public health challenges. You don't want to fritter that away," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

November 20, 2009
Mammogram advice accurate but not ‘right'
In a column for msnbc.com, Art Caplan writes that data didn't save those screening scientists from being thrown under a bus. Read more...

November 19, 2009
I Want My Mammograms!
(From CNN) A government task force says women in their 40s don't need annual mammograms. Dr. Art Caplan comments on the possibility of insurance withdrawing coverage of breast cancer prevention screening. Read more...

November 18, 2009
Health officials keep quiet about vaccine supplies
(From Minnesota Public Radio)...up to this point, the vaccine distribution process here has been shrouded in secrecy. Some Minnesota clinics have withheld information from the public about their vaccine supplies.
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"The public has to trust what's going on. The less they know, the more they think something sneaky is going on." - Art Caplan, medical ethicist Read more...

November 17, 2009
Beyond Guantanamo: Torture Thrives in Connecticut
(From The Huffington Post) Ironically, as progress is finally being made in the international struggle against torture, the state of Connecticut has chosen this moment to launch a radical, pro-torture initiative of its own.
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One of the nation's preeminent bioethics scholars, Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, testified on Coleman's behalf that the feeding of competent prisoners against their will - even to save their lives - violates the most basic tenets of the medical profession. Read more...

November 13, 2009
The Age of Bio(in)security: Science, Citizens, and the Future
The Appignani Bioethics Center, a project of the American Humanist Association, held a press conference and panel discussion to examine controversies in biomedical and environmental science and policy, including stem cell research, brain and cognition, and climate change technologies. Featuring Senior Fellow Jonathan Moreno, and moderated by Visiting Scholar Ana Lita. Watch on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

November 12, 2009
Trading Women's Rights for Political Power
Francis Kissling co-authors this op-ed in The New York Times.
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A GRIM reality sits behind the joyful press statements from Washington Democrats. To secure passage of health care legislation in the House, the party chose a course that risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to come. Read more...

November 12, 2009
Minnesota rolls out H1N1 vaccine with care
(From StarTribune.com) Jason Schwartz, MBE Alum and Research Staff at the Center for Bioethics comments on Minnesota's program for handing out H1N1 flu shots.
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"You rely on individual honesty," he said. Other than visibly pregnant women or children, it's not always obvious who's at high risk, a list that includes those with asthma, heart disease, cancer or other chronic conditions. Minnesota, on the other hand, puts the onus on medical clinics to identify their high-risk patients and call them in when the vaccine's available. Schwartz called it "an important step" in ensuring the vaccine gets to the right people. "That's what I like about it." Read more...

November 10, 2009
H1N1 vaccine: Many can't get it; some don't want it
(From Southern California Public Radio) Art Caplan comments on an article discussing the low supplies of H1N1 vaccine.
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University of Pennsylvania professor Art Caplan says refusing the vaccine is distressing-and dangerous. Caplan, who studies medical bioethics, says it might be time for a few "fireside chats." Read more...

November 10, 2009
Opinion: U.S. swine flu response dismal at best
(From msnbc.com) Art Caplan writes that vaccine delays and priority breakdowns raise fears about a worse crisis ahead.
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Few seem to want to say so, but this nation has mounted a dismal response to the swine flu epidemic. By dismal I mean this: There's not nearly enough swine vaccine to go around, there are conflicted messages about when the doses and antiviral supplies will arrive and half of all Americans are reporting they are too afraid to get the vaccine even if they are able to find it. Read more...

November 10, 2009
AMC to Honor National Award Recipients
Washington, D.C., November 2, 2009 - The AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) will award national recognition to nine individuals (including Senior Fellow David Asch and Dean of the School of Medicine Arthur H. Rubenstein), and one medical school for their outstanding contributions to academic medicine. The awards will be presented on Saturday, Nov. 7, during the association's annual meeting in Boston. Read more...

October 30, 2009
Minds on the Edge
(From WHYY) On Oct. 15, about 35 people gathered in WHYY's Civic Space for a follow-up town meeting. Those participants, working with moderators from the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, dug more deeply into three of the issues raised by the program and the earlier dialogues at the June 18 session. Read more...

October 29, 2009
Rationing Care at the Beginning of Life?
(From ABC News) UK Doctors Refuse to Resuscitate Baby Born at 21 Weeks, Sparking Debate... In the course of the debate over health care reform, some of the political rhetoric has focused on "rationing" and the idea of how much money can or should be spent on someone at the end of his or her life. But as care evolves, similar debates may someday surround how much can be spent at life's beginning.
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"Size is part of the issue here, and speed of development," said Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

October 29, 2009
Not Pregnant? Cut In Line for H1N1 Vaccine
(From ABC News) Vaccine Distribution Should Be Better Regulated, Experts Say... The swine flu vaccine is available now - you just need to cut in front of a pregnant woman to get it. Large numbers of people clamoring to get the H1N1 vaccine as it became available -- potentially spurred by President Obama's declaration that the H1N1 pandemic was a national emergency -- led many health care professionals to wonder whether publicizing guidelines on who should get the vaccine first was enough.
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"It is ludicrous to leave the allocation of scarce vaccine to individual judgment and self-interest," said Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more...

October 27, 2009
Buying and Selling Kidneys
(From KUOW 94.9 Seattle) Director Art Caplan and Visiting Scholar Frances Kissling join a discussion on the ethical issues surrounding compensation for kidney donations.
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Every year about a million people die because their kidneys have failed. The problem is there are not enough people willing to donate a kidney. What if there was a system to compensate kidney donors? Could such a system avoid the problem of poor people being exploited for their organs? Critics say a living kidney donation is maiming. Others believe there is a way to increase kidney donations without creating an organ trafficking problem. We'll hear both sides and your side. Listen here...

October 27, 2009
Congratulations to Summer Interns '09 Amelie Raz and Rachel Kohn!
Amelie Raz is the 2009 Lee Lusted First Place Award Winner for her presentation: "Regulated Payments For Living Kidney Donation: An Empirical Assessment of the Ethical Concerns," and Rachel Kohn is one of three 2009 Lee Lusted Award Winners for her presentation: "Fixed Versus Lottery-Based Incentives To Improve Clinicians' Response To Surveys." Their talks were outstanding, and these prestigious awards well deserved. Among 68 student presentations selected for presentation at this year's Society for Medical Decision conference. Rachel and Summer Intern '09 Michael Rey were also coauthor's on Amelie's first-prize research. Congrats on jobs well done!

October 23, 2009
Art Caplan has been appointed to the ethics committee of the National Hemophilia Foundation

October 22, 2009
American Law Journal featuring MBE ALUM airing Monday, October 26 @7pm
MBE Alum Colleen Lyons is a guest for the American Law Journal in a panel discussion on medical journal ghostwriting. The show will air to the PA/NJ/DE viewing area of WFMZ-TV (cable channel positions at www.wfmz.com/cable.asp).

October 22, 2009
An open letter to future bioethicists
In response to Zeke Emanuel's plenary address, which opened the most recent annual meeting of the American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities, Art Caplan writes that "facts alone won't suffice for the field of bioethics."
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When you get old enough as a practitioner in any field young people seek your advice about what they should do if they want to do what you do. Given that my age seems to be increasing exponentially this has been happening to me with increasing frequency. Undergraduates, high school students, medical students, those pursuing degrees in law and nursing and even those interested in a mid-career change have been asking me what they need to do if they want to pursue a career in bioethics. Download letter here...

October 19, 2009
Tackling a gruesome trade
In a column for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Art Caplan discusses the issue of organ trafficking.
A new report suggests some necessary steps for dealing with organ trafficking, a problem that has burst into the headlines in recent months. Five rabbis were indicted in July after an investigation in New Jersey stumbled upon a pipeline apparently involving poor Israeli Jews being trafficked into the United States to sell their kidneys. One rabbi allegedly paid $10,000 to the kidney seller and pocketed $100,000 as his fee. The criminal complaint quotes him as saying he had been in the organ business for a decade. Read more...

October 16, 2009
Med journals adopt new disclosure rules
Director Art Caplan, and Senior Fellow Jonathan Moreno , along with others, authored a document which has influenced medical journals to adopt a new disclosure policy.
"Editors at leading medical journals have agreed to adopt a new standard conflict of interest disclosure form that probes deep into the financial and nonfinancial interests of published authors". That's the start of a blog titled "Med journals adopt disclosure rules" signed "Bob Grant" at The Scientist, based on a news item on The Wall Street Journal. Read more...

October 16, 2009
Outside the Lines: Genetics
Watch Art Caplan in an ESPN special: Outside the Lines
Airing on ESPN Sunday, October 18 @ 9am
Watch a preview here...

October 16, 2009
PBS series "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly" features an interview with Art Caplan on autism
One family's battle - body, mind, and spirit - against autism, a complex brain disorder that some say now affects 1-in-91 children.

Sunday, October 18 @ 1:00pm: CH 12 - WHYY, Philadelphia
Saturday, October 17 @ 10:30am: CH 13 - WNET, New York
Sunday, October 18 @ 6:30pm: CH 13 - WNET, New York
Sunday, October 18 @ 10:30am: CH 26 - WETA Washington D.C.

Find the air date near you by visiting religionethics.org

October 13, 2009
Study seeks ban on organ trafficking
UNITED NATIONS (Associated Press) - A new international convention is needed to prevent trafficking in kidneys and other organs and potentially life-saving tissues and cells, according to a joint study by the United Nations and the Council of Europe released Tuesday. The study calls for international experts to agree on a definition that is recognized worldwide of what constitutes "trafficking in organs, tissues and cells."
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Arthur Caplan, a co-author of the study who chairs the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics and directs its Center for Bioethics, said the report reinforces the belief by many "that the basis for obtaining organs and tissues for transplant should be voluntary altruism." Read more...

October 13, 2009
International pact needed to prevent organ trafficking, UN-backed study says
(From UN News Centre) - A new, binding international treaty is needed to prevent trafficking in organs, tissues and cells (OTC), protect victims and prosecute offenders in this exploitation of the deeply impoverished, according to a joint study launched today by the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
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Arthur Caplan, co-author of the study and Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Director of the Center for Bioethics of the University of Pennsylvania, stressed that money for body parts exploited the poor, who do not improve their situation post-sale or work their way out of poverty. Read more...

October 13, 2009
HEALTH: Study Faults Unregulated Trade in Human Organs
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 (IPS) - A growing new market for human organs has prompted the United Nations and the Council of Europe to call for an international convention to regulate the sale of body parts, mostly kidneys and livers, in transplant surgery worldwide.
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Asked about published reports that human cadavers used in "body exhibitions" were mostly body parts from Chinese political prisoners, Professor Arthur Caplan, a co-author of the study, told reporters Tuesday the same ethical principles that govern illegal trafficking should apply to exhibitions. Read more...

October 13, 2009
Report calls for global U.N. pact to ban organ sales
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A new international pact is needed to ban trafficking in human organs, tissues and cells, protect victims and punish offenders, says a report issued on Tuesday by the United Nations and Council of Europe. Selling body parts was not just unethical, it also led to greater health risks for both donor and recipient than free, voluntary transplants, the 98-page report said. "We affirm as a primary principle no financial gain should be coincident with obtaining organs and tissues for transplant," University of Pennsylvania academic Arthur Caplan, one of the report's authors, told a news conference. Read more...

October 12, 2009
H1N1 crisis could swam intensive care units
New report shows pandemic virus has already strained services in other countries ...in a crisis, if H1N1 infections burgeons out of control, for example, the need for ventilators and other critical equipment might exceed the available resources, public health officials warn.
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Caplan said the conflict lies in a health lies in health care provider's ethical obligation to not abandon a patient he or she cares for. And if doctors won't reallocate the resources at their disposal, it can be difficult for a third party to force them. Read more...

October 09, 2009
Parents face charges for withholding care
(From WHYY) The parents of a 2-year-old boy face criminal charges in his death after failing to provide him with medical care because of their religion. The boys' parents, who belonged to First Century Gospel Church in Juanita Park, had prayed for their son's healing, but pneumonia claimed his life. Penn Bio-ethicist Art Caplan says the separation between church and state has limits. Listen here...

October 12, 2009
The trouble with twin births: Room for Debate
(From NYTimes.com) Should the United States move beyond recommended guidelines for fertility treatments to impose stricter regulations on I.V.F. procedures? Should transfers be limited to one embryo at a time? 9 experts weigh in with their opinion. Read more...
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Art Caplan writes "Regulation won't happen." Limiting the number of embryos transferred in infertility treatments makes good sense scientifically and ethically. Some nations have legislated limits on embryo transfer and most professional organizations in the U.S. recommend no more than three embryos be transferred per cycle. (No group is recommending regulation of two or even three embryos.)

October 12, 2009
CNBC's The Business of Innovation: Redefining Healthcare
Art Caplan co-hosts this special program with Maria Bartilomo and Steven Nissan, MD.

Airing Schedule:
CNBC US (EST)
October 12th, 8:00PM/1:00AM
November 16th, 9:00PM/1:00AM

CNBC Europe (CET)
October 12th, 11:00 PM
October 17th, 11:00 PM
November 16th, 11:00 PM
November 21st, 11:00 PM

CNBC Asia (SIN/HK)
October 14th, 6:00 PM
October 18th, 8:00 PM
November 18th, 7:00 PM
November 21st, 9:00 PM

CNBC Australia (AEDT)
November 21st, 9:00 PM

October 8, 2009
Health workers: Get flu shots or get another job
In a column for msnbc.com, Art Caplan comments that "Only half get vaccinated, risking dangerous transmission to patients."
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Enough already with the whining, moaning, demonstrating and protesting by health careworkers. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, nurses' aides, and anyone else who has regular contact with patients ought to be required to get a flu shot or find another line of work. The California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee have issued statements that individuals should be able to refuse the vaccine. The New York State Public Employees Federation said that "vaccination for influenza is not as effective in the control of disease as vaccination for diseases such as polio, measles and mumps." Other health groups wanted to know why those who preferred to shun the shot could not simply wear masks. Read more...

October 6, 2009
Before reform, health care must be deemed a right
(From Bakersfieldexpress.org) America can't move forward with health care reform without a consensus on whether health care is a right, bioethicist Art Caplan argued Monday night at California State University, Bakersfield. And that right has to be rooted in an American concept, just as other countries have come up with their own rationales - as a reward for getting through World War II in the United Kingdom, for efficiency's sake in Germany or for solidarity in Canada. That American concept, Caplan said, is equality of opportunity. Implicit in American philosophy is the notion that someone who works can pursue anything. But that breaks down without health care, he said. "If you can't chew, or walk, or eat, or see, then you can't get far," he said. Read more...

October 5, 2009
Right to reform
In The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Art Caplan writes that health reform is in the ethics.
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I am often asked what is the single most important issue that needs to be resolved in order to insure that health care reform moves forward in America. The answer is actually quite simple. If the key reason to reform the health care system is to extend health insurance coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who have none, then all those promoting reform but especially President Obama must drive home the ethical position that health care is a right. Read more...

October 2, 2009
Congratulations to former Senior Fellow Dr. Paul Root Wolpe. Dr. Wolpe has just been elected to become a Hastings Center Fellow.

October 2, 2009
Kidney failure, Part 3: A revolution: trading donors
(From StarTribune.com) Kidney exchanges use the oldest economic model of all - trade. Computer matching can start a chain of transplants, but the idea has a long way to go. Read more...
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"There is a need to build a national registry," said Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. "We have it for blood. We have it for bone marrow. But we have to have the political will to do it."

October 1, 2009
Congratulations to Senior Fellow Dr. Jonathan Moreno! Dr. Moreno has just been appointed to the IOM Forum on Neuroscience.

September 30, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center, and to Dr. Jan Jaeger, Associate Fellow! They have just been awarded funding from the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (IRM) for their pilot project: "Identifying Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Transplantation."

September 29, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Salimah Meghani, Associate Fellow at the Center for Bioethics!
Salimah H. Meghani, PhD, MBE, CRNP, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing has received a highly competitive Challenge Grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) stimulus funding from NIH, National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) for her proposal, "A Novel Approach to Elucidate Mechanisms for Disparity in Cancer Pain Outcomes."
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This research uses a novel technique, Choice-based Conjoint Analysis (CBC), to understand if racial/ethnic subgroups with cancer pain use different mental trade-offs in arriving at pain treatment decisions; have differential preferences for cancer pain treatment; and how stated preferences relate to their actual adherence to pain medications for cancer pain. The study also assesses the temporal stability and predictive validity of CBC utilities in palliative care population. CBC method has implications for generating knowledge about how subgroups of patients make decisions regarding choices such as symptom management, advanced care planning, hospice enrollment, or the use of technologically advanced end-of-life care. Findings will help identify targets sensitive to tailored, patient-centered interventions in improving equity in palliative care outcomes.

September 25, 2009
Where Public and Private Options Both Work
In a commentary for freep.com, Dominic Sisti writes about the national debate about health care reform.
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Over the summer, the national debate about health care reform became confused, thanks in large part to right-wing obfuscations. Fortunately, the most treacherous lies - like Sarah Palin's fictitious death panels - have been debunked. Nonetheless, myths about health care reform, and particularly about the public option, continue to be peddled. There remains genuine confusion about what the public health care option is and is not. Read more...

September 22, 2009
Art Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics, has been added as a member of Scientific American's Board of Advisors!

September 21, 2009
Health care lessons from the rest of the world
From Minnesota Public Radio, medical ethicist Arthur Caplan joins Midday to discuss how medical care is delivered and paid for in other countries and how our system compares in cost and quality Listen here...

September 18, 2009
Spinning the globe offers lessons in health care
In a column for msnbc.com, Art Caplan asks "What does the rest of the world know that we don't?
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We are 37th! We are 37th! No, this is not the cheer to be heard this week at a Notre Dame football pep rally. Rather, it is, according to the last rankings done by the World Health Organization, the chant appropriate for the U.S. health care system. The pressure is building to do something about our broken system. President Obama says he will not back down - we have to reform our system before more Americans die prematurely or go broke. Read more...

September 17, 2009
My Right Self: Transgender Considerations
Arthur Robinson Williams, MBE 2008, MD 2010, has produced a traveling documentary exhibit, "My Right Self: Transgender Considerations," to educate medical students about the unique challenges of patients who are lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual. Washington University School of Medicine is the next stop on the tour. For more information, click here. To read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, click here.

September 4, 2009
Legalize medical marijuana
In a Op-Ed for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette co-authored with Brian Gralnick, Arthur Caplan writes that the benefits of medical marijuana are proven and Pennsylvania is behind the times.
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Perhaps you know a Pennsylvanian suffering from multiple sclerosis, glaucoma or AIDS, or someone who is struggling to work up an appetite because of the nausea they suffer from chemotherapy. Beyond the difficulty these people face in dealing with these debilitating conditions, what would you say ought to be done if there were a beneficial, very affordable medicine that these patients needed but that they could not obtain in a safe and legal way? That is the reality for far too many ailing Pennsylvanians when it comes to accessing medical marijuana. There is legislation pending in Harrisburg that would end the frustration so many of your ill friends and neighbors feel about being unable to legally obtain marijuana. Read more..

September 1, 2009
Editorial: 'Death panel' claims, distortions
(From StarTribune.com) A number of distortions have been driving, if not defining, the health care debate during this town hall summer of discontent. Among the most damaging has been the claim that reimbursing doctors for consulting with patients on end-of-life care directives would create so-called "death panels."
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Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, doubled down the damage done. "When critics began saying that this plan contains provisions for end-of-life care counseling, and that means that there's going to be a confrontation with a death panel, I thought that set back end-of-life care planning about a good 40 years." Read more...

August 30, 2009
Supporting Health Care Reform Is the Right Thing to Do
Jonathan Moreno and Ruth Faden write that in supporting health care reform, we can be good citizens and morally responsible neighbors, and still do right by those we love.
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New polls suggest that Americans' support for health care reform is wavering. Attacks by opponents of reform appear to be succeeding in increasing fears that health care reform is bad for those of us who already have insurance - that is to say, bad for most of us. The critics claim that government will get between ourselves and our doctors, we will get less care and have fewer choices. Read more..

August 28, 2009
Man says insurance agent encouraged lobbying against 'public option'
(From Minnesota Public Radio) A Minnesota man says his mother's health insurance agent encouraged her to call her senators and lobby against the proposed health care reform. As the health care reform debate heats up around the country, some health insurance companies are encouraging their members and employees to get involved in the discussion. Some insurance companies have been lobbying against the public option, but the companies say they're not pressuring members to support any particular position. Yet, at least one independent Minnesota agent may have done just that.
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"I think it's absolutely unethical to be doing that," said Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and the former director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. "The reason is very simple," he said. "There is a power differential between the patient and the doctor or, let's say, an insurance person. The client wants something." Click here to read full article and/or to listen...

August 26, 2009
Gene Mix in Monkeys Fixes Defects, Opens New Ethics Debate
(From Bloomberg) Mixing in genetic material from one monkey at the point when two others conceive helped replace defective DNA to produce healthy babies, and may one day keep humans from passing on rare flaws, scientists said. The experiment by researchers at the Oregon Primate Research Center in Beaverton is designed to replace defective DNA in the mitochondria, energy-producing elements of cells necessary for metabolic processes. The scientists reported the findings today in the journal Nature.
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"It's a very exciting experiment that would give parents the option of being able to have their own genetic children," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics in Philadelphia. "It's also the classic example of the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Click here to read full article...

August 26, 2009
A Potential But Controversial Fix For Genetic Disease
(From NPR's All Things Considered) Scientists in Oregon have developed a technique that could be used to prevent certain genetic diseases. They've demonstrated it in monkeys and are anxious to try it in people. The technique raises ethical questions, however, because it makes a permanent genetic change not just in an individual, but in all generations that follow.
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"It does breach the principle: no germ line engineering," Caplan says. "It breaches a promise that many geneticists have made, that whatever else, they're not going down that road. I always thought that promise would be difficult to keep. This particular experiment shows why." Listen here...

August 24, 2009
Vision Grant Research Seeks to Address Rationing in the ICU
The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) awarded its 2009 Vision Grant to a young investigator dedicated to improving clinical outcomes in the intensive care unit (ICU). Society member and Center Senior Fellow Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD, was awarded the $50,000 grant to aid research that he hopes will shed light on the ethical issues related to rationing care in the ICU, a topic of pressing importance as demand for critical care services is expected to outpace the supply of resources in the coming decades. Drawing upon his background as an ethicist and epidemiologist, Halpern is using empirical methods to address issues that harbor ethical implications. "The issue of ICU rationing is a loaded one; it's an issue that has been mired in a largely theoretical and ethical debate that I think misses the point", he explained. "Rationing is inevitable and that in and of itself is not ethical problem. The ethical questions are whether we are rationing efficiently and fairly."

24 August, 2009
'Mad Pride' Activists Say They're Unique, Not Sick
For Some, Psychiatric Conditions Are 'Mad Gifts' to Be Cherished, Not Medicated
Airing on Tuesday August 25th at 10pm as part of the ABC News: Primetime "Outsiders" series.
Imagine if Vincent Van Gogh -- an artist who was famously afflicted with mental health issues -- had been forcibly injected with an antipsychotic drug like Thorazine. Or if Leonardo Da Vinci's genius had been affected by antidepressants such as Wellbutrin.
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Art Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said Mad Pride shouldn't take a one-size-fits-all policy, and the movement doesn't take into account those suffering mental illness who are a danger to themselves or others if they remain un-medicated. Read more...

August 19, 2009
Lab Bench Ethics
Jonathan Moreno Talks with Fred Grinnell About Everyday Practice of Science
(From Science Progress) Fred Grinnell, a professor of cell biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is a man of many interests. A traditional bench scientist, research was always his passion, but over the years Grinnell expanded his academic pursuits to include bioethics and philosophy. Listen here..

August 18, 2009
Protectors of the Human Race: Conservatives Want to Keep Your Genes Pure
Jonathan Moreno and John Neurohr discuss animal-human hybrids for Mic Check Radio.
(From Science Progress) So what's the appropriate progressive response to the recent under-the-radar attempts from conservatives to ban the creation of animal-human hybrids? "Strategically," suggests SP Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Moreno, "the answer is caricature. Because the silliness is outrageous." Listen here...

August 18, 2009
Health care reform dead? Think again
Art Caplan, in a column for MSNBC.com, writes that the health care reform will pass, but the real issue is the shape it will take
From all the attention focused on the rambunctious town hall meetings, ranting about "death panels" and repetitive shrieking against government health care on right-wing radio, one might think health reform is pretty much dead in America. Think again. Read more...

August 18, 2009
Cash for Kidney: Some say legalize organ selling
(From the Associated Press) An Israeli man says he sole one of his kidneys for more than $20,000 and now some say the government should make such deals legal so those waiting to get the organs they need have a better chance to receive them.
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Art Caplan says there are a number of ethical reasons against allowing people to sell their organs. Watch the video...

August 18, 2009
Translating the Health Care Debate: Explaining the Terms that Matter
The facts. The skinny. The straight dope. If you're talking about health care reform (and who isn't, these days?), the truth has been thoroughly muddled lately with a lot of buzzwords, misnomers and outright fabrication. That's why The Takeaway is talking to Art Caplan. He's the director of the Center of Bio-Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and he's going to put the health care debate and such concepts as the potential "co-operative insurance consortia" into plain-speak. Listen here...

August 16, 2009
Everyday nanotechnology
Nanobots don't yet scrub clogged arteries, but nano-particles are improving many ordinary products
(From The Boston Globe) Long the stuff of hype and occasional hysteria, nanotechnology is quietly merging into modern life, its minuscule particles infused in an array of products, ranging from stink-proof socks to life-saving cancer medications.

The technology today underlies some $200 billion worth of workaday items, some prescribed by doctors but most sold directly off retail shelves. From a gleam in the eye of a few far-seeing scientists, nanotech has leapt with little fanfare to shopping centers and workplaces.
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Risk never killed a new technology,'' Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, told journalists at a recent workshop on nanotechnology at MIT. "There will certainly be issues, there will certainly be problems. But I don't see any major 'in principle' objection'' that will pose a huge impediment to nanotechnology. Read more...

August 16, 2009
Sisti: A difficult conversation can be made easier
In an article for the Lansing State Journal, Center research associate Dominic Sisti writes that law would strengthen, not weaken, patients' voices.
Recently, conservative opponents of health-care reform have fixated on the erroneous notion that President Barack Obama's health-reform efforts will usher in objectionable forms of triage and euthanasia. It did not take long for Sarah Palin to denounce so-called "death panels" that she claimed were embedded in health-reform plans, a claim that found support from Newt Gingrich. What Palin seemed to be talking about were the provisions set out in HR 3200, Section 1233. These provisions are designed to give clinicians the time and remuneration to provide a patient counseling about that patient's end of life wishes. The claim that bureaucrats sitting on "death panels" will decide who lives and who dies, will discriminate against the disabled and will coldly ration life sustaining treatment is patently false. There are and never will be any such things as "death panels." Read more...

August 14, 2009
Palin target renounces care rationing
(From The Washington Times) Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, the White House official targeted by Sarah Palin and other conservatives as an advocate for health care rationing and "death panels," said Thursday his "thinking has evolved" on the need to decide who gets treated and who does not. "When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago ... I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care," said Dr. Emanuel, a health care adviser to President Obama in the Office of Management and Budget, during a phone interview. "I think that over the last five to seven years ... I've come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care," he said. "If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases."
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Art Caplan, who heads the University of Pennsylvania's bioethics center, called the attack ironic. "You've got a guy who has been an outspoken critic of euthanasia getting dragged around as a proponent, which is just not true. And he's probably got a more market orientation in his personal view of paying for health care than others," Dr. Caplan said. Read full article here.

August 13, 2009
Health Care Reform and Nazi Symbolism?
(From WBUR.org) Rush Limbaugh is defending his comparison of the president's health care reform plan and Nazism, saying the Nazis were fundamentally national socialists who opposed small government and capitalism. We talk to ethicist Arthur Caplan, who writes that not only is Limbaugh muddying the health care debate, he's doing something much more serious-fueling the flames for Holocaust deniers. Listen here...

August 11, 2009
Health care debate turns vile with Nazi analogy
In a column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that right-wing loudmouths distort history, diminish true evil of the Holocaust

Rush Limbaugh and those who invoking the Nazi analogy to attack President Barack Obama's effort to reform health care in America are not "insane" as David Brooks pronounced on last Sunday's "Meet the Press." Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the rest of the loud-mouthed right wing are, when they even hint at an analogy to the Nazis in talking about Obama's health reform effort, engaged in something far worse than insanity. They are engaged in the vile evil of Holocaust denial. Read more...

August 10, 2009
Center for Neuroscience and Society Opens at the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania has launched the Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society, a cross-disciplinary endeavor to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanity. The announcement was made today by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price. The Center will confront the social, legal and ethical implications of increasingly rapid advances in neuroscience. "For more than a half-century, Penn has been driving the brain sciences revolution, whose impact can be felt in every sphere of human endeavor, from enhancing human performance to treating anti-social behavior to understanding neurodegenerative diseases," Gutmann said. "The new Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society typifies our resolve to integrate and to apply knowledge for humanity's benefit."

Penn cognitive neuroscientist Martha J. Farah will lead the Center as director. Farah, the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Psychology at Penn, is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and six books on cognitive neuroscience and its societal impact, including the forthcoming Neuroethics: An Introduction with Readings, to be published in the spring of 2010. Farah is the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Penn and a frequent speaker on emerging trends in neuroscience. "Neuroscience is giving us increasingly powerful methods for understanding, predicting and manipulating behavior," Farah said. "Every sphere of life in which the human mind plays a central role will be touched by these advances. We are fortunate at Penn to have the largest and most accomplished group of scholars anywhere in the world working on issues of neuroscience and society."

Additional information on the Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society is at www.neuroethics.upenn.edu.

August 6, 2009
Organs For Sale? The Debate Over Financial Incentives for Organ Donation
(From Scienceline.org) The recent arrest of a businessman accused of buying and selling kidneys in the United States, a scandal unearthed on July 23 as part of the New Jersey corruption investigation, has drawn attention once again to the ever-growing organ shortage in this country. Over the years, the number of people waiting for an organ in the U.S. has soared upward, increasing from 31,000 people in 1993 to over 101,000 today, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, the non-profit organization that keeps track of all the transplants in the U.S. As the shortage grows, the dilemma remains, how can the number of donations be brought up to meet the need? Some think this supply-and-demand problem could have a financial solution - provide incentives to donors.
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However, those opposed to financial incentives argue that the risk of slipping from incentives into a market is too big to take. "We've just been though two years of complete economic collapse at the inability to regulate markets because people cut corners, cheat [and] are not forthcoming," says Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "And there's no reason to think a market in organs would work any differently." Read full article here.

August 5, 2009
Bioethics Legend Inspires Lectureship
In one of the most eagerly anticipated lectures of the year, the dynamic Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., visited the Penn campus to speak at the inaugural Renée C. Fox Lectureship in Medicine, Culture, and Society. More than 500 students and faculty members attended the event, designed to embody the interdisciplinary spirit of Penn Professor Renée Fox's legendary career as well as to reflect the prestige and tradition that is Penn.

Dr. Farmer, the Presley Professor of medical anthropology at Harvard medical school, is a founding director of Partners in Health. He and his colleagues have pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for treating AIDs and tuberculosis; his "grand rounds" lecture focused on global health equity. The lectureship was established by Dr. Fox's sister and brother-in-law, Rosa and Robert Gellert, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. The Gellerts made a single gift of $25,000 to create the lectureship that commemorates Dr. Fox's work. Numerous friends, colleagues, former students, and faculty members made additional contributions in order to ensure that the series continues long into the future.

"We wanted to take this opportunity to honor Renée while she was still actively pursuing her work," explains Robert Gellert. "We wanted to make sure her name will continue to live at Penn."

"Dr. Renée Fox is, without question, one of the most respected figures in medicine, sociology, and ethics," says Arthur H. Rubenstein, M.B.,B.Ch.,executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health system and dean of the School of Medicine. "Lectureships are a vital vehicle for exchanging ideas, and this particular lectureship is a wonderful tribute to a remarkable and influential scholar." (From Penn Medicine, Summer 2009)

August 2, 2009
Screening of living organ donors varies from hospital to hospital
(from WHYY) A New Jersey corruption case is renewing worries about organ trafficking. As authorities investigate what could be the first documented case in the U.S., ethicists are sounding an alarm over the rules that govern donations. A Brooklyn, New York man is accused of brokering the sale of black-market kidneys and taking advantage of vulnerable donors from Israel. UNOS the United Network for Organ Sharing - recommends that every transplant center provide an advocate to protect the interests of donors, but each hospital sets its own policies. University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist Art Caplan says some centers do a good job. Click here to listen.

July 31, 2009
Transplant rules deserve review
(From The Gloucester County Times) The most macabre aspects of last week's New Jersey "sting" arrests may provide something valuable beyond fodder for late-night comedians. The sweep could prompt debate on procedures for procuring human organs for transplant. Within the United States, at least, stories about selling kidneys had been the stuff of urban legend. You know, the one about the drugged or drunk traveler who wakes up in his hotel bathtub, filled with ice, to find that his kidney has been "harvested." The arrest of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum last week may have changed that. He's alleged to have offered a kidney from an Israeli to a U.S. patient for $160,000. If the charges stick, it would be the first documented case of U.S. organ trafficking, according to the Associated Press.
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As Art Caplan, the distinguished medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania told the AP, some hospitals have strict screening procedures, but others have what amounts to a don't-ask-don't-tell policy about organs' origins. "Some have a pretty cursory examination like, 'are you sure you want to do this,' " Caplan said. "Some don't look very hard." Read more...

July 29, 2009
Lax hospitals may be fostering kidney-selling
(From MSNBC.com) A look-the-other-way attitude at some U.S. hospitals may be fostering a black-market trade in kidneys, transplant experts say. Some hospitals do not inquire very deeply into the source of the organs they transplant because such operations can be highly lucrative, according to some insiders. A single operation can bring in tens of thousands of dollars for a hospital and its doctors.
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"Some have a pretty cursory examination, like, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'" said Art Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist involved in a U.N. task force on international organ trafficking. "Some don't look very hard."Read more...

July 29, 2009
How Kidneys Are Bought And Sold on Black Market
(From Forward) Six months ago, Ronen came to the United States from Israel on a life-or-death mission. He needed a kidney transplant, or he would die. Soon after he arrived and moved into a donated basement apartment in Brooklyn, a man approached him and offered to give him what he wanted most in the world - for a fee. Ronen would have to pay $160,000 for a kidney; the "donor" would get $10,000.
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Rosenbaum is the first person charged in the United States with trafficking in live human organs, medical ethicist Arthur Caplan said. His arrest has illuminated a dark side of the medical world, where the desperately poor sell body parts to the desperately ill, brokers make a profit and medical centers turn a blind eye."There is probably more of this going on," said Caplan, who serves as director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and is co-directing a United Nations task force on international organ trafficking. "It is a very lucrative business." Read more...

July 23, 2009
Doc shortages to deficits: Reform reality check
In a column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan sorts out the scare tactics and challenges facing health care overhaul.

It can be hard to separate the fact from the fiction of the myriad claims and questions separating health care reform. Some charges - that reform means the end of private insurance - are quite simply bogus. Other worries - that more insured Americans could worsen doctor shortages - are more justified. As President Barack Obama's health care reform plan faces a possible delay from opponents including Republicans, some conservative Democrats, health insurers and many pharmaceutical companies - it's time to sort out the scare tactics from reality. Read more...

July 16, 2009
Surgeon general post is a big job for a big lady
In a column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan asks: Do you have to be thin to be fit for the role of nation's Top Doc?

Since President Obama announced his pick for the nation's Top Doc, Internet message boards have been atwitter with the observation that Dr. Regina Benjamin is fat. Critics seem to believe it's ironic that the nation's top doctor would be overweight, and it's led the most nattering of nags to conclude that she should not be picked for prom queen, er, I mean, surgeon general. You would think the entire population of the blogosphere had suddenly reverted to the seventh grade. Read more...

June 27, 2009
Details, schmetails: Think big on health care
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that reform requires appealing to American values, not number cruncher.

As the debate over health care reform heats up this summer, the new battle cry of those who oppose change is that overhauling the nation's health care can't work because reform is "all in the details." And the details, the critics say, don't add up. Republican critics in the House and Senate along with the American Medical Association, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the pundits of right-wing talk radio, TV and blogs are warning daily that without the "details," health reform cannot possibly proceed. Read more...

June 26, 2009
New York State Allows Payment for Egg Donations for Research
(From the New York Times) Stem cell researchers in New York can now use public money to pay women who give their eggs for research, a decision that has opened new possibilities for science but raised concern among some bioethicists and opponents of such research. The decision by the Empire State Stem Cell Board, announced two weeks ago, is believed by the board to be the first in the country allowing state research money to be used for this purpose. The board agreed that women can receive up to $10,000 for donating eggs, a painful and sometimes risky process.
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Father Berg, who opposes stem cell research and in vitro fertilization, said he had found "strange bedfellows" in bioethicists who share his concern. Among them is Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, who said he feared that compensation would lead poor women to ignore the risks egg donation can pose. "The image of women having their eggs harvested in a market is one that the industry is going to find difficult to destigmatize," he said. "That notion of being treated as an object to derive those kinds of materials is not one that will sit well."
Read full article here.

June 26, 2009
Mind Wars: Conversations from Penn State
An interesting video interview with the author of (the excellent) Mind Wars, Jonathan Moreno, on Neuroscience and the Military. Watch videos here...

June 25, 2009
One Liver, No Waiting
Did Steve Jobs cut the line to get his new liver? The Apple CEO went to Tennessee recently for a liver transplant, which may be related to the rare form of pancreatic cancer he was diagnosed with five years ago. But with 16,000 people on the national liver waiting list, did he pull some strings or game the system to get a life-saving organ transplant? Arthur Caplan discusses this issue with Paul Harris on KIRO/Seattle. Click here to listen.

June 24, 2009
Did Steve Jobs' wallet help cut transplant wait?
In an op-ed for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that the Apple co-founder's trip to Tennessee for liver raises questions.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs' recent trip to Tennessee to pick himself up a new liver has raised some sticky questions about what money can buy. Jobs, 54, was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer five years ago and had a piece of his pancreas removed. The prognosis with tumors of the pancreas is not good, the cancer can spread to the liver. First, let me say I wish Jobs the best. This column is being typed on an Apple computer, while an iPod is playing and an iPhone is displaying missed messages on its screen. You would be hard-pressed to find a stronger Apple devotee and Steve Jobs admirer than I am. Read more...

June 24, 2009
Did Steve Jobs's Money Buy Him A Faster Liver Transplant?
(from health.com) This week it was reported that Steven Jobs, the CEO and cofounder of Apple, underwent a liver transplant two months ago. One detail concerning Jobs's transplant seemed odd: The surgery took place at a hospital in Tennessee, some 2,000 miles from Jobs's home in northern California. Why Tennessee? The answer sheds light on the intricacies of the organ transplant system, as well as why it's sometimes easier for people with significant financial resources to get an organ transplant. (Jobs's estimated net worth: $5.7 billion.)
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The reason that some people might be able to get transplants more quickly is that they're standing in more lines. Nothing prevents someone from being evaluated and listed at multiple transplant centers. As long as a patient has the wherewithal to fly around the country-and be available at the drop of a hat if a liver becomes available (this is where the private jet comes in handy)-a patient can, in theory, be evaluated by all the transplant centers in the country. "The system works at two levels," explains Arthur Caplan, PhD, the chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "One, who gets in to a center. Two, who gets transplanted off a particular center's list when an organ becomes available. Most of the attention goes to stage two, but the biggest ethical challenges are really at stage one." Read full article here.

June 23, 2009
The Market for Organs
CNBC Video: Perspectives on whether organ donation was more free-market based, with Sally Satell, organ donation advocate and Dr. Art Caplan, bioethicist. Click here to watch.

June 22, 2009
Appearances before Senate committee aim to snare research money
(from The Tennessean) When the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs convenes on Wednesday morning, actress Mary Tyler Moore will testify. So will pop star Nick Jonas. Dr. Griffin Rogers, director of the National Institutes of Health, will make an appearance. As will Ellen Gould, a Nashville wife and mother of eight. Like Moore and Jonas, four of Gould's children have been diagnosed with Type I diabetes. "Diabetes is something that means every bite of food that you put in your mouth you have to think about," said Gould, whose husband, Dave Gould, is The Tennessean's vice president of advertising."When you have diabetes and certainly when you have four kids with diabetes, it just totally overshadows everything." Celebrities like Moore and ordinary people with gripping stories like Gould all play a large, but hard to quantify, role in determining funding for disease research and other aspects of public health policy, advocates and medical ethicists say. "The personal stories, but certainly the celebrity end, is a peculiarly American phenomenon," said Art Caplan, a bioethicist and director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. "Not many other countries have celebrities helping to shape the science budget."

June 22, 2009
Perlman Receives Award for "Bioethics 2.0" Project
Center Associate Dr. David Perlman was awarded $10,000 by Penn Nursing to integrate innovative educational technologies into his nursing class at Penn. The award is the second year of funding for Perlman and will allow him to develop a series of video podcasts on topics in clinical ethics, deployment of interactive wikis to capture student research and encourage group collaboration, and license several ethics education scenarios from E4 - Eclipse Ethics Education Enterprises, LLC. Working with Perlman on the project this summer is Center intern and UCLA pre-med student, Rebecca Cha. Use of the interactive wikis will allow students to access these resources while enrolled in Perlman's course but also later in their clinical studies as ethics resources. The podcasts will also appear on Penn Nursing's iTunes University site. Disclosure: Dr. Perlman is the President & Founder of E4 and inventor of the Crucial Choices learning format.

June 19, 2009
An Orchestra In Need Of A Conductor
In an op-ed for cbsnews.com, Jonathan Moreno and co-author Michael Rugnetta write that we need to develop a better alternative to the guinea pig "one-size-fits-all" approach to medicine.

Americans today are guinea pigs in a "one-size-fits-all" approach to medicine. Clinical trials designed to gauge if a treatment works for most people most of the time, ignore the influence of genes on health and wellness. Since one size does not fit all, patients are left to travel down a winding path of physician-led trial and error.

June 15, 2009
Rare prenatal testing case raises ethical questions
(From The Oregonian) In the months before their daughter was born in 2007, Deborah and Ariel Levy worried the baby might have Down syndrome. They say a doctor at the Legacy Center for Maternal-Fetal Medicine assured them that a sample of tissue taken from the placenta early in the pregnancy ruled out the developmental disability, despite the results of later testing that showed the fetus might have it. But within days of the birth of their daughter, the Southwest Portland couple learned the baby did have Down syndrome. Had they known, they say, they would have terminated the pregnancy. Now they're suing in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking more than $14 million to cover the costs of raising her and providing education, medical care, and speech and physical therapy for their daughter, who turned 2 this month. The suit also seeks money to cover her life-long living expenses.
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Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said fewer than 10 such suits -- for disabilities ranging from spina bifida to severe retardation -- are filed in the U.S. each year. "The reason they're rare is you are forced to take a position that's very awkward," Caplan said. "Parents don't like arguing it, and courts don't like hearing it." (Read full article here)

June 10, 2009
The Sunny Side of an Underwater Mortgage: A Look at the Neurobiology of Social Cooperation
In a Center for American Progress article co-authored with Daniel Langleben, MBE alumnus Arthur Robinson Williams writes that from a biological standpoint, socially cooperative behaviors could be an end to themselves, as far as your unconscious brain is concerned. But financial systems and policies ignoring the often-unconscious human social instincts do so at their peril. The growing rift between the financial markets and society may be alleviated by a few practical steps to reinforcing the "social contract". Read full article here.

June 8, 2009
The truth: Kevorkian was less than noble
In an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Arthur Caplan writes that film producers should resist glorifying his life.

Jack Kevorkian's dream has come true: He will get his much-longed-for treatment on the silver screen. The flamboyant doctor says he assisted more than 130 people in dying between 1990 and 1998. Aside from this long record of killing, he is also known as the inventor of the "Thanatron," the world's first assisted-suicide machine, and a part-time painter of macabre works involving rotting skulls. Read more...

June 5, 2009
Family sues over genetic defect
(From WHYY) Brittany Donovan has Fragile X syndrome, an inherited form of autism and cognitive disability. A district court judge in Philadelphia has decided that Donovan can sue for damages over a defective product - essentially, the sperm with its mutated DNA. Widener Law professor John Culhane points out some ethical murkiness because without the genetic defect, Donovan's life wouldn't exist. Culhane says courts have typically dismissed cases that weigh an impaired life against no life at all. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan says the implications for this case go beyond sperm banks to the wider practice of genetic screening. Read more...

June 5, 2009
Inaugural Commentary of Bioethics Student Scholar Forum Written by MBE Student
The Bioethics Student Scholar Forum has been launched as part of the Women's Bioethics Project's "Fresh Voices Initiative". The forum will feature outstanding commentary by bioethics graduate students from around the world. The inaugural commentary has been written by student scholar Jennifer deSante of the University of Pennsylvania. In the wake of Octomom, Jennifer explores whether physicians have an ethical obligation to screen IVF applicants. Read more...

June 3, 2009
Poof, You Have A Kidney
Art Caplan is quoted in a Forbes.com article which asks how singer Natalie Cole bypassed thousands of people to get an organ.

There are nearly 80,000 people on the wait list for a kidney transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. So how did Natalie Cole, the Grammy-award winning singer, receive an organ on May 26, bypassing thousands of people?
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On the other hand, there are reasons to be nervous about the process even if preferential treatment isn't a factor. "Direct donation puts organ donors in the position to expect something. There are possibilities for extortion," Art Caplan, a Biomedical Ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Forbes. He said he would hope that when the donor says, "I want to donate to [a celebrity] through direct donation," the doctor would reply, "would you consider donating to Mrs. X who's going to die in three days [instead]"? Read full article here.

June 2, 2009
Ulrich Selected as AAN New Fellow
The American Academy of Nursing today announced that Center Fellow Connie Ulrich, RN, PhD will be among the 98 nurse leaders who will be inducted as Fellows during the Academy's 36th Annual Meeting & Conference, on November 7, 2009, in Atlanta, GA. "The Academy is comprised of many of the nation's top nursing executives, policymakers, scholars, researchers, and practitioners," said Academy President, Pam Mitchell, PhD, RN, FAAN. "Being selected as an Academy Fellow is an important recognition of one's contributions to nursing and health care." Selection criteria include evidence of significant contributions to nursing and health care. Each nominee must be sponsored by two current Academy Fellows. Selection is based, in part, on the extent to which nominees' nursing careers influence health policies for the benefit of all Americans. Read More...

May 31, 2009
For sports fans, outrage proves selective
Art Caplan is asked about the Manny Ramirez use of performance-enhancing substances in a Philadelphia Inquirer Sports article.

Indignation bubbled out of the caller to a Phillies pregame radio show earlier this month.
Just a few days after the Manny Ramirez bombshell, the angry fan was demanding that the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder be expelled from baseball, that the sport adopt a zero-tolerance policy for performance-enhancing substances.
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"You forgive your family," said Penn ethicist Art Caplan, "and these players are our extended family."
Read more...

May 26, 2009
Opinion: Court has the right to insist on chemo
In a column for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that government should make sure kids with lethal but treatable ills get care.

The case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy who has a highly fatal form of cancer, took a sad turn this week. Hauser's mother, Colleen, took the boy and fled the family's Sleepy Eye, Minn., home after a court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed a nasty tumor growing in Daniel's chest. Running away with Daniel to avoid medical treatment for him is a terribly dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. Read more...

May 26, 2009
Teen Cancer Patient On-The-Run Stirs Health Care Debate
(from NPR.org) Minnesota authorities continue to search for a missing 13-year-old cancer patient and his mother. Daniel Houser, who suffers from Hodgkin's lymphoma, disappeared with his mother recently after skipping a court-ordered cancer treatment in favor of natural healing methods. Houser's condition has reportedly worsened as his case re-ignites the spirited debate over the parental right to decline recommended treatment for a sick child. Click here to listen.

May 24, 2009
Proposals to shorten transplant list make no gains
(From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Each day, 17 Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. That grim statistic emphasizes the fact that the waiting list for organs is bigger than ever -- it now sits at 102,118 -- and gives a special urgency to the debate over how to shrink the gap between supply and demand for these life-changing gifts. There are several proposals for increasing organ donations, none of which has made much progress in America so far. The three leading ones are: Making payments to donor families, which would cover some expenses for families willing to donate a relative's organs; enacting "presumed consent," which would assume someone's organs are available for transplant unless a family opted out of donation; and establishing "A" and "B" lists of potential recipients, which would give preference to people on the waiting list who had agreed to be organ donors themselves.
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Arthur Caplan, the Emanuel and Robert Hart professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he believes payments to families would only increase donations a few percentage points at most. Read more...

May 20, 2009
When parents refuse treatment for children: A legal and ethical Q&A
CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke with CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin and Arthur Caplan, Chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania about. Read more...

May 20, 2009
Obituary: Rabbi Gerald Wolpe
(from The Philadelphia Inquirer)In a career that spanned more than half a century, Rabbi Gerald I. Wolpe was best known for two things: leading one of the region's most influential synagogues, Har Zion Temple, and his contributions in the fields of medical ethics and caregiving. Rabbi Wolpe, 81, of Center City, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse.

May 13, 2009
Army Disputes Doctor's Claim in Injury Study
(From The New York Times) A former surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is a paid consultant for a medical company, published a study that made false claims and overstated the benefits of the company's product in treating soldiers severely injured in Iraq, the hospital's commander said Tuesday.
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Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was unaware of any previous cases in which medical studies involving injured soldiers had been retracted because of such allegations. "People are very careful when they deal with this patient population," he said. "I think they understand that the stakes are pretty high."

Click here to read the full article.

May 13, 2009
Do DNA patents spur science or stifle it? Both
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that a cancer suit that is unlikely to succeed has huge implications for our health

Lawyers who work on patents in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are sweating bullets today. It is not a bad thing when patent lawyers are feeling queasy. The storm that has got them turning green has been building up for many years. It has arrived in the form of a lawsuit that has enormous importance for you, your family and for the future of biomedical research around the world. Read more...

May 12, 2009
Visiting Scholar Elected a Fellow in the College of Physicians of Phila.
Carol Schilling, PhD,Visiting Scholar in the Penn Center for Bioethics, was recently elected a Fellow in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The College, founded in 1787 and located in Center City, is the oldest professional medical organization in the country. Today over 1,500 Fellows convene at the College to serve the medical community and the public by advancing the cause of health.

Dr. Schilling has been an active member of the College's Executive Committee of the Section on Medicine and the Arts. There she contributes to programs for physicians, patients, their families, and the public that explore ways that the literary, visual, and performing arts uniquely contribute to understanding the practice of medicine and the experiences of illness. She is being recognized for that work and for her innovative contributions to the teaching of medical humanities and medical ethics to undergraduate, graduate, and medical students.

May 7, 2009
Time will Tell for 'Truth Commission'
In an article for politico.com, Jonathan Moreno argues that there is a responsible way out of the politicized debate that preserves the assurance of an necessary and thorough investigation.

The superheated debate about a "truth commission" on the detention and interrogation policies of the past few years has the usual Washington all-or-nothing quality. In a charged partisan atmosphere, it's hard to see that this is not a zero-sum game. In fact, there are ways that America can assure itself both that there is democratic accountability and that political exploitation is minimized. Read more...

May 5, 2009
Opinion: World's flu response was hardly hype
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that despite a few missteps, the reaction to potential pandemic was on target.

Just when you thought the swine flu epidemic was going to be the story of the decade, the saga appears to be coming to an end.
Sure, there are still new cases being reported around the world. And the focus of monitoring for any nasty mutations in the swine flu virus is shifting to the southern hemisphere, where winter - flu's favorite season - is about to begin. Read more...

May 1, 2009
Power for Patients
In an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun, Jonathan Moreno and Ruth Faden write that comparative effectiveness research will help people make better health choices.

It's a name only a policy wonk could love: comparative effectiveness research. But get ready to hear a lot about it; it could save your rights as a patient - and maybe even your life. If opponents have their way, it could be the bogeyman that brings down health care reform. Read more...

April 29, 2009
Opinion: Stopping the flu is your problem, too
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that the 1918 flu offers stark lessons for today's threat.

When faced with the threat of disease, the impulse of most Americans is to think about medical technology and miracle drugs. These are not likely to be much help in the battle against swine flu - but the history books might. Read more...

April 27, 2009
The Center for Bioethics announces the publication of the new Penn Center Guide to Bioethics, Springer 2009
Two of the Penn Center's Senior Fellows, Vardit Ravitsky, PhD and Autumn Fiester, PhD, have combined expertise with Center Director, Arthur Caplan, PhD and over 80 other contributors to create The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics -- the foremost authority on both traditional and cutting-edge bioethical issues. The Penn Guide navigates uncharted ethical terrains, undoubtedly shaping both academic and public discourses on the challenging controversies generated by new technologies, theories, and medical advances.

This volume represents the Penn Center's distinct, pioneering approach to bioethics, one that emphasizes empirical treatment of bioethical issues, and the integration of bioethical scholarship with practical application.

In the Penn Guide, Learn what the Penn Center has to say about:

Neuroethics and brain imaging: Is my mind mine?
Choosing future people: reproductive technologies and identity
Eugenics and survival of the fittest in the modern world
Bioethics and national security
Vaccination, abortion, nanotechnology, organ transplantation, end-of-life issues, and more
The Penn Guide will be the definitive text for policy makers, health practitioners, researchers, and students. This book will also inform the general public, patients, and family members as they seek answers to the bioethical issues of the day.

April 22, 2009
Glaxo Compares Sex Virus Shots, Delay Raises Eyebrows
(From Bloomberg.com) GlaxoSmithKline Plc will release the first study to compare its cervical cancer vaccine with Merck & Co.'s blockbuster Gardasil, more than a year after completing the research.

Sales for Glaxo's Cervarix amount to less than 10 percent of those garnered by Merck's similar vaccine. The comparison study may influence which product doctors use and insurers pay for. It will be presented for the first time at a medical meeting in Malmoe, Sweden, on May 10, according to a draft of the program obtained by Bloomberg News.

The study also will help governments determine which of the vaccines to select for immunizing women, influencing a global market that Glaxo estimated at more than $10 billion last year. Glaxo's shot, used less often than Gardasil in Europe, hasn't won approval in the U.S., where Merck began selling its version three years ago.

Glaxo's decision to wait 14 months to release the data and pick a little-known medical meeting as the venue "certainly has both my eyebrows up," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, in Philadelphia. Read more...

April 20, 2009
Inventing a Disease
In an interview with WHYY, Art Caplan says pharmaceutical advertising has hyped disease claims to broaden a drug's market.

A new drug to treat overactive bladder hit pharmacy shelves this month. The pill is similar to others on the market - for folks who need the bathroom often and sometimes have accidents. Pharmaceutical companies say the condition is widespread and under-treated. Critics say it's just another case of drug company disease mongering. More...

April 20, 2009
New Book Edited by Jonathan Moreno and Rick Weiss: "Science Next: Innovation for the Common Good from the Center for American Progress"
Emerging from the Bush era when right-wing ideology frequently trumped main-stream science in government, America needs bold new approaches to the most important issues of our time, such as global warming, stem cell research, national security, and improving communication in the digital age. This is the informed citizen's essential guide to science policy from the premier progressive think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action. Read more...

Thursday, April 9, 2009
Jonathan Moreno blogs for PRIM&R (Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research)
The Washington Post report of March 30, 2009 that nothing of value was learned from one of the several detainees who was water boarded at the Guantanamo prison facility could fuel the efforts of Senator Patrick Leahy to undertake a systematic investigation of detention and interrogation practices. In an interesting historic irony, if Senator Leahy's judiciary committee does move this initiative forward its final report is likely to appear in 2010, exactly 25 years after Senator Frank Church's committee report was issued, which disclosed intelligence community abuses starting in the 1950s and extending through the Watergate scandal. Among the operations discussed were experiments with hallucinogens like LSD as they might be used in interrogations of, say, a kidnapped American nuclear scientist by an enemy and how to defend against such practices. Read more...

April 2, 2009
SSBE Competition Announcement
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Swiss Society for Biomedical Ethics (SSBE), Bioethica Forum is sponsoring a competition to imagine and argue for - or against - possible scenarios for the future of Bioethics in the next 20 years. Deadline for submissions is June 30th 2009. Up to three prizes, and a Student prize, will be awarded. The Jubilee contest winner and the Student prize winner will be invited to present their paper at the SSBE Jubilee symposium in December 2009, and will receive a stipend to contribute to their travel and accommodation expenses. The essays will be published in Bioethica Forum in 2010. Read more...

March 25, 2009
Did Obama Open the Door to Human Cloning With His Stem Cell Order?
Arthur Caplan and Jonathan Moreno are quoted in a U.S. News & World Report article.

In lifting restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research this month, did President Obama leave the door open to human cloning? To hear Obama say it, the answer is unequivocally no. "We will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction," he said in a speech before signing the executive order that reversed George W. Bush's limits on embryonic stem cell research. "It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society."

March 24, 2009
Extreme Money Making
(From 6abc.com) The downturn in our economy is forcing many people to consider extreme ways to make money. Some are even selling parts of their bodies for a profit. But Dr. Art Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center says you need to ask yourself some serious questions before giving a piece of yourself up for profit. Read more...

March 23, 2009
Perlman wins award at the Turning Technologies User conference
Center associate David Perlman won the Regional Innovation Award at the Turning Technologies User Conference that was held at Temple University March 11-12, 2009. The conference focuses on the integration of technology into higher education.

March 18, 2009
New Stem Cell Policy Founded on Ethics and Expertise
In an article for the Center for American Progress, Jonathan Moreno discusses the new executive order on stem cells research signed into law by President Obama on March 9, 2008.

President Barack Obama was true to his word when, last week, he told the nation and the world that federally funded scientists wishing to study embryonic stem cells would no longer be hamstrung by Bush-era restrictions based on the former president's limited view of the phrase "responsible research." Predictably, Obama has run into some political pushback. The complaints have arisen primarily over two issues, neither of which is substantial and both of which deserve to be countered. Read more...

March 16, 2009
How we put the stops on science
In an op-ed for Newsday.com, Jon Merz writes that Obama's stem cell policy will lead to more research, but other factors could hold up progress

President Barack Obama has overturned a signature policy of President George W. Bush on a matter of controversial science - research using embryonic human stem cells. Bush had severely limited federal support for that research, which might seem self-defeating in a society that values truth and information and prizes scientific progress.

The scientific and medical communities generally were quite critical, of course, and are applauding now. But, in Bush's defense, as hard as scientists try to be value-neutral in their work, there are occasions when restraining their inquiries or dissemination of their results does occur - even at the initiative of scientists themselves. Read more...

March 10, 2009
Stem Cell Debate
In a CNN video, Art Caplan discusses whether human embryos should be considered life (via Christian News Report). Click here to view.

March 9, 2009
Fox News Video: Debate on Obama's Stemm Cell Policy Reversal
President Obama is expected to announce on Monday that he is reversing the controversial George Bush ban on stem cell research. Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United For Life Action and Dr. Art Caplan, Director of Medical Ethics of the University of Pennsylvania debate the issue. Click here to view.

March 9, 2009
Finally, a coherent stem cell policy
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that the Obama reversal of Bush-era funding ban boosts science and ethics.

President Obama is carrying out his campaign promise to permit federal funds to be used for embryonic stem cell research. This reversal of former President George W. Bush's ban on such funding is good news for the science needed to find treatments for currently incurable conditions and for the ethics at stake in the issue. Read more...

March 6, 2009
The Coming Challenges in Public Health
Art Caplan is a guest on Minnesota Public Radio to discuss the economic crisis' impact on public health as federal and state governments cut back on programs that help communities respond to disease outbreaks and bioterror attacks. Click here to listen.

March 4, 2009
Fertility Doctor Will Let Parents Build Their Own Baby
Clinic's Service to Custom-Design Baby's Hair and Eye Color Sparks Controversy

Imagine if you could choose your baby the same way you pick out a new outfit from a catalogue. Perhaps some blue eyes, a bit of curly hair, and why not make her tall, lean and smart? One fertility doctor now says that he may be able to deliver. Read more...

March 4, 2009
"Designer Babies" Ethical?
In a video posted on blog.bioethics.net, Art Caplan voices his concern about parents having the ability to determine the traits of their children. Click here to view.

February 19, 2009
Thom Hartmann's "Talk Radio for the Rest of Us"
Arthur Caplan and host Thom Hartmann debate the question "Do Synthetic Biologists Play God?"

February 9, 2009
Do Synthetic Biologists Play God?
In an opinion article for the Discovery Channel, Arthur Caplan says critics of synthetic biology who invoke the 'playing God' concern are sometimes using the notion of play to suggest that scientists are at best cavalier and at worst just screwing around when it comes to making artificial or novel life forms.

If mankind creates a microbial life form are we playing God? And, if we are, is that wrong? There is a lot going on in the emerging field of synthetic biology that makes answering these questions very important. Scientists have been talking a lot lately about their plans to create life. J. Craig Venter, the father of modern synthetic biology, is hard at work trying to build an artificial bacterium with the smallest number of genes necessary for a living bacteria to function. He has already built a simple bacteria-eating 'minimal' virus from scratch. Jack Szostak, a Harvard molecular biologist, is trying to build a brand new life form from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the primitive DNA-like source code for replication. And other teams around the world are busy trying to synthesize new viruses or create never before seen modified versions of others. Read more...

February 6, 2009
Ethics and octuplets: Society is responsible
In an article for the Phildelphia Inquirer, Arthur Caplan writes that mega-multiple births must be discouraged. If needed, government must get involved.

Something has gone terribly wrong when a 33-year-old single woman - who has no home of her own, no job, and a mother who worries her daughter is "obsessed" with having children - winds up with 14 of them. And all are under age 8, including eight newborn babies now in a neonatal nursery in various states of prematurity. Examining what exactly went wrong may shed some light on what ought to be done. If doctors cannot prevent such a shambles from recurring, then society must. Read more...

February 6, 2009
Ulrich to Receive 2009 ENRS Award
Senior Fellow Connie Ulrich, PhD, RN will receive the 2009 Eastern Nursing Research Society's Distinguished Contribution to Nursing Award for her work in Bioethics. This award is given recognition of outstanding contributions to nursing research.

February 4, 2009
The Ethics of Motherhood
In an appearance on ABC News, Arthur Caplan weighs in on the California mother of octuplets. Click here to view.

January 31, 2009
Ethicist Testifies For Hunger-Striker's Rights
A prison doctor violated professional standards when he force-fed William Coleman, even though the inmate's 16-month hunger strike had threatened his health, a medical ethicist testified Friday in a hearing at Superior Court in Hartford. Following a patient's wishes regarding medical treatment is the most important consideration, said Arthur Caplan, a professor and director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "In my opinion, a competent adult like Mr. Coleman has the right to refuse any and all treatment," Caplan said. Read more...

January 20, 2009
Talk about Teaching and Learning: Teaching Without Borders
In an essay for the University of Pennsylvania's Almanac, Jonathan Moreno continues the essay series that began in the fall of 1994 as the joint creation of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Lindback Society for Distinguished Teaching.

There's a story, or maybe an urban legend, about the most successful swimming coach in Yale history, a man who led the US Olympic team to numerous medals. According to this story he couldn't swim a stroke. As one of my journalist friends likes to say, the story is too good to fact check. Apocryphal or not, this story captures the way I (and, I suspect, many colleagues) feel about teaching, especially "interdisciplinary" teaching. A philosopher by training, here at Penn I teach bioethics in the Department of History and Sociology of Science and the Department of Medical Ethics. But that only begins to describe my irresponsible disregard of respectable disciplinary protocol. Read more...

January 15, 2009
Drug companies ban trinkets, but will it make a difference?
Minnesota Public Radio discusses why the pharmaceutical industry has instituted a voluntary ban on the type of free trinkets, like Lipitor mugs and Ambien pens, that are commonly found in doctors offices. While some say this is a good start, critics argue that the influence of drug makers on the medical community is not going to be diminished. Guest included Allan Coukell, Director of policy with the Prescription Project, Marjorie Powell, Senior assistant general counsel for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Arthur Caplan. Click here to listen.

December 23, 2008
University of Tokyo establishes of a New Interdisciplinary and International Base for Biomedical Ethics Education and Research
Advances in the life sciences and medicine have tremendous social consequences in today's global society. These advances demand that the international community effectively address the numerous ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of developments in various fields such as cloning, regenerative medicine (using embryonic stem (ES) and iPS cells), neuroscience, and end-of-life and reproductive medicine. To tackle these issues from Japan, two pressing tasks remain: (1) the establishment of an international research center that will serve as a think tank for considering the ethical implications of biomedical science and technology, and (2) the cultivation of human resources capable of responding to ethical issues that arise in medical practice, and professionals to serve on ethics committees to conduct appropriate reviews of biomedical research. Read more...

December 21, 2008
Book Review: What Would you Do?
Charles Bosk's book What Would You Do? is the Times Higher Education's book of the week. From the review: Bill Smith was a doctor who ofttimes had counselled the parents of children with terrible genetic problems. At one meeting, though, he was so upset that he could only read from a prepared statement. In What Would You Do?, Charles Bosk relates how, at this meeting, "Bill began to read in a quavering voice - it was clear that he was close to tears - and he was able to get through half his statement before he threw it on the table, turned to one of his colleagues and said simply, 'finish,' and left the room sobbing". Bosk's ethnographic study, said Smith, "had destroyed everything he had accomplished ... (and) erased 20 years of professional achievements". Particularly upsetting was that Smith "had always considered (Bosk) a friend". Read more...

December 17, 2008
Is face transplant worth risking patient's life?
Arthur Caplan writes that a doctor must be willing to help patient die if procedure fails in a column for MSNBC.com

The face transplant performed a few weeks ago by Dr. Maria Siemionow, a skilled and caring surgeon, and a team of other specialists at the Cleveland Clinic went far beyond several prior experiments, including the world's first such procedure in France three years ago. The Cleveland Clinic doctors replaced nearly the whole face of a woman with one from a female cadaver. Given the high risk of failure from the rejection of the donor's skin, is such a pioneering procedure worth the danger to the patient's life? Read more...

December 17, 2008
Bioethics And The Obama Administration
Arthur Caplan discusses the health care challenges facing the Obama administration in an interview on NPR. Click here to listen.

December 12, 2008
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance and Strangeness of Insect Societies
On December 2, 2008, Dr. Arthur Caplan interviewed authors E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler. Eighteen years after the publication of their exhaustive and Pulitzer Prize-winning study The Ants, co-authors E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler presented a new study of "social insects"-ants, bees, wasps, and termites, among others-that collectively form "superorganisms," i.e. tightly knit colonies of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor. This event was a presentation of the Free Library of Philadelphia is now available as a Free Library Podcast. Click here to listen.

December 9, 2008
Bioethics Briefing Book Available Free Online
"From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book" is available free online at The Hastings Center. Written by the Center's interdisciplinary scholars and Fellows, as well as other leading experts, the Bioethics Briefing Book seeks to inform debate surrounding thirty-six of the most controversial bioethics topics in the media today. Each entry is presented in clear and engaging language, sensitively presenting a variety of voices and perspectives grounded in scientific and ethical fact.

November 24, 2008
Brain lawsuit raises questions about research donations
A Newsday.com article discusses the growing number of legal actions nationwide that raise ethical and legal questions about how scientists acquire body parts for research. Art Caplan has served as an expert witness in several cases in Maine.
Click here for full article.

November 20, 2008
Should IVF Be Regulated? With Multiples More Apt to Have Medical Problems, Doctors Face Ethical Dilemma
In an article by ABC News' Emily Friedman, Art Caplan comments on the ethical responsibilities of doctors to prevent multiple births.

Eric and Elizabeth Hayes, like a growing number of couples who turn to fertility treatments, got more than they bargained for when they became the parents of three sets of multiples. On top of the two gallons of milk they need to quench the thirst of their 10 kids every morning and the eight loads of laundry per day it takes to keep them in clean clothes, the Hayes family must also deal with the medical difficulties that often come with multiple births. Children born in multiples are almost always premature, which can lead to problems, such as mental retardation, blindness, cerebral palsy and learning disabilities. With more couples turning to fertility treatments, a doctor's decision to implant multiple embryos in infertile women causes anguish for both doctor and patient. Read more...

November 18, 2008
Moreno to Head President-Elect Obama's Council on Bioethics Review Team
The Obama transition team named Jonathan Moreno as head the Bioethics Review Team. Dr. Moreno's team will be responsible for managing the transition activities related to bioethics issues. (Source)

November 17, 2008
Member of Center's External Advisory Board is Winner of Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year"
Steven Nichtberger, MD has been awarded the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® award in the Emerging Company category. Dr. Nichtberger is one of only 10 executives from across the entire country that received an award at a dinner on Saturday night. This year's national winners were selected across 10 categories by an independent panel of judges from among more than 240 winners from 26 U.S.regions - these regional winners were announced in June 2008, when Steven received the Philadelphia Entrepreneur of the Year® award in the Life Sciences category. National award recipients were then selected from regions across the country. In his acceptance speech, Steven said, "it is my honor and privilege to accept the award on behalf of the employees and investors in Tengion, whose passionate pursuit of success provides the basis for this award". The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Awards program recognizes the leaders and visionaries who are creating and building world-class businesses. Awards are given to entrepreneurs who have demonstrated excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

November 14, 2008
Bioethics Expert Named to Discover Magazine's Top 50 List
Arthur Caplan, PhD, director of the Center for Bioethics, was named to Discover Magazine's "Smartest People on the Planet" list, which includes picks "from genius kids and rising stars to unsung heroes and self-styled outsiders." Caplan was named among the list's ten "Influentials," alongside Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former NIH Director Harold Varmus and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski. Of Caplan's work analyzing touchy topics like stem cell research and the Terri Schiavo case, the magazine wrote, "Although he sometimes loses battles against politicians, he often succeeds in swaying public opinion, which in the end may be his proudest achievement."

November 14, 2008
The Global Infertility Crisis
Center Fellow Anita Allen writes that women around the world are finding it more and more difficult to conceive, creating what one expert calls an "infertility time bomb."

Business recently took me to Taipei. My escort, a young feminist scholar, urged me to have my fortune told. "Taiwanese women love to visit fortune tellers," she said. So, overdressed in pumps and a suit, I followed her into a subway station near Dragon Mountain Temple. In brightly lit stalls, behind desks outfitted with computers and caged birds, sat a dozen soothsayers from which to choose. I selected a middle-aged woman. She asked and I told her the year of my birth. "You are a snake," she concluded, after calculating something on her computer. Then, fingering the space between my nose and upper lip, she ventured an observation of uncanny accuracy: "You have not been able to bear children." I met a middle-aged lawyer in Taipei who said she went through fifteen years of emotionally and physically painful state-subsidized fertility treatments because her in-laws insisted. Okay, it was a lucky guess; but it was a very good lucky guess. There is a global infertility crisis, particularly among women 35 to 55. Read more...

November 12, 2008
Medical Advances Complicate Definition Of Death
On Nation Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation", Arthur Caplan discusses the case of a brain dead child and the hospital and parent's fight over stopping life support.
A Washington, D.C. hospital is suing to remove a 12-year-old boy from life support. Motl Brody was pronounced dead - with no brain function - after a battle with cancer. Motl's parents, who are Orthodox Jews, believe that he, and his soul, are still alive. Keith Alexander is a journalist for the Washington Post, where his article "Judge Delays Decision on Removing Life Support" appeared on Nov. 11. Alexander explains the case, and discusses the clash between science and religion on the definition of death. Listen now...

November 7, 2008
Obama election signals change in stem cell fight
In a column for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan writes that battles over embryonic research and abortion may be coming to an end

'Change' was the horse that Barack Obama's presidential campaign rode to victory. Indeed the 2008 election will be remembered not only for Obama becoming the first African-American president, but also for its impact on core bioethical topics that have long dominated American domestic politics. Read more...

November 4, 2008
Senior Fellow Dr. Farah Awarded 2008-2009 William James Fellow Award
From Association for Psychological Science: Martha Farah has been a leader in the field of cognitive neuroscience almost from the moment when she published her first papers as a graduate student. She is credited with two decades of elegant and influential patient-based cognitive science, for the earliest call for a connectionist cognitive neuropsychology along with a diverse array of examples of this approach, and for the unerring pursuit of creative new approaches to and applications of cognitive neuroscience. Her studies on the topics of mental imagery, face recognition, semantic memory, reading, attention, and executive functioning have become classics in the field.

In her classic book Visual Agnosia: Disorders of Object Recognition and What They Tell Us about Normal Vision, Farah identified key questions about high-level vision that set the agenda for that field over the next twenty years. The second edition of Visual Agnosia, published a few years ago, confirms how fruitful it was to ask these questions, and includes Farah's own considerable contributions toward answering them. Farah also recognized the potential of connectionist modeling in neuropsychology and argued persuasively for it. The diversity of problems Farah has tackled with computational modeling is probably unrivalled, and in each case, the result was a new explanation of an important finding.

More recently, Farah has introduced a cognitive neuroscientific approach to the study of the achievement gap associated with socioeconomic disparities. Farah also has assumed a leadership role in the emerging field of "neuroethics." Once again, Farah has laid the foundations for these two areas by creating a research agenda that should be influential for decades to come.

October 28, 2008
Off-label meds, not placebos, are the real worry
In a column for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan discusses the research study which indicated that 1 in 5 prescriptions are to treat conditions for which meds aren't approved.

Last week, a newly released study showed that half of all American doctors who responded to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. This news captured a lot of media attention and elicited a round of ethical hand-wringing with many experts wondering if systematically deceiving patients by giving them placebos without telling them was right. But ironically, there is a paper out this week in Public Library of Science Journal that is getting nowhere near the same attention as the placebo study, but raises a far more serious concern: Doctors prescribing off-label medicines that may not work. Read more...

October 9, 2008
Breast cancer gene tests - not worth the price?
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that biotechnology firms hope to cash in on women's fear of breast cancer.

Fear of breast cancer has created a tempting market for companies to sell genetic testing directly to consumers. The disease kills 40,000 people a year in the U.S., with an estimated 212,920 new cases diagnosed in 2007, according to the Mayo Clinic. It's no wonder women would want a reliable gauge of their risk. However, American women should be aware that genetic tests for breast cancer are more hype than real hope. Read more...

October 9, 2008
The Argument for Long Life
Minnesota Public Radio presents a speech given by Art Caplan at the Chautauqua Institution in the summer of 2008. Art attempts to answer the question: "Is it immoral to want to live longer, be smarter and look better?" Listen...

October 2, 2008
Banks worthy of rescue; why not the uninsured?
In a commentary for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Senior Fellow David A. Asch writes that we must protect capital markets - and our sick, too.

If we can bail out the banking sector, can't we "bail out" our sickest and most vulnerable citizens? Last month, the Federal Reserve provided $85 billion to support collapsed insurance giant American International Group. The move followed a Treasury Department bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at a cost likely to exceed $25 billion. And this week, Congress is debating a broad-based financial-system rescue said to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

October 1, 2008
The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics
Prepared under the auspices of the Center for Bioethics and drawing on its faculty, fellows and visitors past and present, will be an essential resource for all health care practitioners, researchers, and students who struggle daily with ethical issues. This book will also help patients, their family members, and loved ones as they seek answers to bioethical issues that have touched their lives. Finally, it will allow any reader a deeper understanding of the vibrant world of bioethics as it unfolds. With sixty-eight chapters written by eighty experts, the Guide, written in accessible language, provides an integrated overview of this important and complex field. Starting with sections that present both classical and emerging topics in bioethics, the book journeys through the bioethical challenges faced along the life course, from reproduction through childhood to the end of life. For more information or to purchase, please visit the Springer Publishing Company website.

September 28, 2008
A Prisoner's Right
In an Op-Ed for the Hartford Courant, Art Caplan says that force-feeding a starving inmate violates medical ethics.

Earlier this year, I spent a week in Belfast, Northern Ireland. While there, my wife and I took a tour of the city focusing on the events surrounding "The Troubles" - the bitter fight by the Irish Republican Army to gain independence from Britain. The troubles have, happily, been resolved by goodwill and diplomacy, but you cannot go far in downtown Belfast without being reminded of the price that was paid. Everywhere in Catholic neighborhoods, there are huge murals remembering the 10 men who died in the 1981 hunger-strikes and the more than a dozen who died in earlier starvation protests. Prisoners in Northern Ireland and elsewhere have long used hunger strikes as a last-ditch form of protest. Now, William Coleman is doing so in a Connecticut prison. The issue is should prison authorities force-feed him? Read more...

September 25, 2008
Center for Bioethics Recognized with Health Image Award
Wellsphere has recognized the outstanding contributions the Center for Bioethics has made to promote health and healthy living. Wellsphere is a top 10 health website with more than 2 million visitors per month and growing. This month, Wellsphere launched a significant expansion with more than 100 new health communities. Our network of health bloggers includes more than 1,000 of the leading medical writers and healthy living professionals on the Internet, including expert contributors from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Johns Hopkins medical schools.

September 22, 2008
Ethical Implications of Implantable Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) Tags in Humans
Ken Foster and Jan Jaeger review the use of implantable RFID tags in humans in an article in the American Journal of Bioethics.

Abstract: This article reviews the use of implantable radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags in humans, focusing on the VeriChip (VeriChip Corporation, Delray Beach, FL) and the associated VeriMed patient identification system. In addition, various nonmedical applications for implanted RFID tags in humans have been proposed. The technology offers important health and nonhealth benefits, but raises ethical concerns, including privacy and the potential for coercive implantation of RFID tags in individuals. A national discussion is needed to identify the limits of acceptable use of implantable RFID tags in humans before their use becomes widespread and it becomes too late to prevent misuse of this useful but ethically problematic technology.

September 19, 2008
Superfoods may be safe, but skip the surprise
In a column for MSNBC.com, Art Caplan says that you should have a right to know what you're feeding your family.

The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it will start reviewing proposals to sell genetically engineered animals as food. The makers of faster-growing fish hope to be first in line. The FDA is actually straining a bit to gain oversight of this emerging technology. Technically, the FDA deals with new drugs and medical devices - not animal breeding. But as genetically engineering an animal requires using new genetic tricks to alter DNA, the agency is calling the gene-modifying technology a drug and claiming authority over who does what to design animals. Read more...

September 19, 2008
Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research
JAMA reviews a collection of essays edited by William Lafleur, et al. which gives historical context to the discussion of modern-day ethical dilemmas involving research on human subjects.
View PDF

September 11, 2008
Nature Podcast: U.S. Election
Jonathan Moreno participates in Nature's discussion on biomedical policy in the next administration. It is Nature's second in their series of special election-themed podcasts. To listen, click here. For more information on Nature's podcasts, click here.

September 9, 2008
Six Easy Pieces
A Cheat Sheet for the Next Administration on Science & Tech Policy
In an article for Science Progress, Arthur Caplan says that Americans know that the future fortunes of the country rest on scientific and technological advances and asks the next president to take biomedical science policy seriously.

Every new administration starts off brimming with optimism about what it can do when it opens for business in Washington, D.C. In reality, getting two, or possibly three, major policy initiatives enacted-much less implemented-in a first term is a major achievement for any administration. Keeping that stark truth firmly in mind, it is important that the next administration presses forward with new ideas and renewed enthusiasm in the health, science and technology sector. Why? Read more...

September 7, 2008
Palin's creationist views would endanger U.S. progress
In a commentary for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Art Caplan says that Sarah Palin's vews will mean the United States would stop being a leader in biotechnology, alternative-energy technology, synthetic biology or genetics.

There has been no end of reaction to Sen. John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick. After the initial "Sarah who?" response from those in the other 49 states, some commentators have decided it was brilliant to place a dynamic young woman at McCain's side.

August 27, 2008
Going From One Cell Type to Another Without Using Stem Cells
Wired magazine's Brandon Keim interviews Art Caplan in an article discussing how scientist used a virus to coax one type of cell to become another, without the intermediate stem cell step.

Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist who wasn't involved in the study, called the findings a "breakthrough" for both diabetes and the field of regenerative medicine. "It's a system that's easier to manipulate than getting a new stem cell to turn into something you want," he said. "The kind of work done here has the promise to go into clinical practice in a relatively short time." Read more...

August 27, 2008
Presidential Elections Will Force Stem Cell Showdown
Art Caplan is interviewed for a Wired magazine article discussing how the upcoming election will force a decision to made regarding stem cell research.

But all that may soon come to an end, said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan. Whoever wins the Presidential election, he said, is likely to increase funding for all forms of stem cell research. Between federal funding and money spent by states and private companies, "there will be a lot of money on the table. The question is, who will deliver? In one sense, the ethics will take a back bench to the practical questions," he said. "It'll be an interesting time, and I think the science will now be the determinant." Read more...

August 11, 2008
New possibilities for stem cell research
In an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, Jonathan Moreno and Rick Weiss (Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress) discuss the current ethics and politics of stem cell research.

As America struggles with such weighty issues as the war in Iraq, the foundering economy and the run-up to a historic presidential election, it may be difficult to recall that seven years ago this month the most wrenching issue facing the nation was human embryonic stem cell research. Read more...

August 7, 2008
Mentally ill still subject to contempt
In an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Arthur Caplan discusses how when a Philadelphia Eagle admitted he suffers from depression, the bashing began.

So how far has America come in taking the shame and stigma out of mental illness? Not very far, at least if the acknowledgment by the Philadelphia Eagles' All-Pro guard Shawn Andrews that he suffers from a mental illness is an indication. Read more...

July 30, 2008
From HealthCareInsiders.com:
WHYY Radio WHYY Radio's "Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane" discusses high cost of chemotherapy
Guests on the show were Dr. Arthur Caplan and Dr. Neal Meropol, a gastrointestinal (GI) specialty oncologist from Fox Chase Cancer Center.
(Listen)

July 25, 2008
New IVF dilemmas make old fears seem quaint
On the anniversary of the first "test tube" baby, Arthur Caplan discusses how Louise Brown's doctors didn't envision twins for a 70-year-old in a column for MSNBC.com

Omkari Panwar has given new meaning to the idea that 70 is the new 60. Or perhaps 70 is the new 30? Earlier this month, the 70-year-old mother of two daughters and grandmother to five gave birth via Cesarean section to twins, a boy and girl, at a hospital in India's Uttar Pradesh state after undergoing infertility treatment. If her age can be verified - she has no birth certificate - she would become the oldest woman ever to give birth. Read more...

July 17, 2008
The Case For Embryonic Stem Cell Research: An Interview with Jonathan Moreno
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life interviews Jonathan Moreno about embryonic stem cell research.

Scientists largely agree that stem cells may hold a key to the treatment, and even cure, of many serious medical conditions. But while the use of adult stem cells is widely accepted, many religious groups and others oppose stem cell research involving the use and destruction of human embryos. At the same time, many scientists say that embryonic stem cell research is necessary to unlock the promise of stem cell therapies since embryonic stem cells can develop into any cell type in the human body. Read more...

July 16, 2008
Surgeon sued for giving anesthetized patient temporary tattoo
The Philadelphia Inquirer details a lawsuit filed yesterday where a Camden County woman accused her orthopedic surgeon of "rubbing a temporary tattoo of a red rose" on her belly while she was under anesthesia. Art Caplan, PhD, Professor of Medical Ethics, notes "you cannot do something like this even as a joke."

July 16, 2008
Mobile Polling-For Those Who Simply Can't Get to a Voting Booth
The AARP Bulletin Today highlights the work of Jason Karlawish, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical and a senior fellow at Penn's Institute of Aging, to identify and break down barriers that prevent all too many older Americans-especially residents of assisted living facilities and nursing homes- for any number of reasons, from casting their ballots. Read more...

July 14, 2008
Visiting Scholar Robert Baker & AMA Apology
A report by Dr. Robert Baker and colleagues, "African American Physicians and Organized Medicine, 1846-1968: Origins of a Racial Divide", promoted the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association to apologize for a "past history of racial inequality". The article has been posted on the JAMA Website and will appear in the 16 July issue. Dr. Robert Baker is Director of the Union Graduate College-Mount Sinai, William D. William Professor of Philosophy at Union College and Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvanian Center for Bioethics

Press coverage: Albany Times Union, Washington Post, and Bloomberg.com

July 9, 2008
Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
Deadlines and Awards for the 18th Annual Meeting
Cincinnati, March 5-8, 2009

* Submissions of proposals for the Annual Meeting must be postmarked by October 20, 2008.
* Submissions for Lunch with an Author must be submitted by October 10, 2008.
* Submissions for Undergraduate papers must be submitted by October 20, 2008

This year:
* There will be a $1000 prize awarded by the Squire family Foundation for the best paper submitted on a topic on Pre-college Ethics
* There will be two $500 prizes awarded for the best two papers submitted in any area by untenured faculty
* There will be one $500 prize awarded for the best graduate paper submitted in any area by a graduate student

Registration fees of all accepted graduate student papers will be paid by APPE. Registration fees of all accepted undergraduate papers will be paid by APPE. For details please visit the APPE website.

July 2, 2008
To Test or Not to Test?
Arthur Caplan discusses the ethical issues raised by commercial genetic testing during a podcast for PBS' NOVA. Listen now...

July 1, 2008
1210 AM Tonight: The Moral Compass
Master of Bioethics alums Dr. Mazz and David Sontag want to know if patients should be informed of any risky behavior engaged in by the organ donor of an organ they are about to recieve. Listen now...

June 30, 2008
Medical road trips not worth the cost
Outsourced health care may be cheaper, but quality of care is a big concern writes Arthur Caplan in a commentary for MSNBC.com

Road trip! What college student doesn't get a thrill from that cry? But road trips may soon have more to do with gimpy-kneed geezers than frat boys and bikini-clad coeds - if American health insurance companies have their way. Some major insurers are encouraging patients in need of hip replacements, dental surgery, cardiac care and some elective procedures to leave the United States to get them. Companies such as Aetna and Cigna are considering shipping people to places like India, Thailand, Mexico, Israel, New Zealand, Costa Rica and Turkey for medical services. Read more...

June 27, 2008
Save your hide - skip the tanning booth
In a commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan says to not buy what the indoor tan industry is selling: Lies, wrinkles and cancer

A couple of high school students in my neighborhood recently told me they are getting ready to hit the beach this summer by tuning up their suntans inside tanning beds. When I asked one of my colleagues here at Penn, Dr. William James, a professor of dermatology, if the high school students had the right idea about getting a head start on a tan, he laughed out loud. A tan, he said, represents nothing more than damage to the skin. It is the body trying to defend itself against an environmental hazard - too much UV light. In other words, indoor tanning gets you ready for the beach in the same way that getting scalded in a hot tub gets you ready to be boiled alive. Read more...

June 26, 2008
Cash for kidneys? Sales won't widen donor pool
In this latest commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan says that Americans don't like the idea of mixing money and body parts

Need extra livers hearts or kidneys to transplant because the demand is greater than the supply? The answer, say proponents, is simple. Put a price on kidneys and livers and people will be falling all over one another to sell them. Set the price high enough and hordes will amble into hospitals, sign binding agreements to let themselves be sawed into transplantable bits for cash upon their demise, the thinking goes. Read more...

June 25, 2008
Disclosing organ transplant risks: Now or later?
Arthur Caplan is questioned by MSNBC.com health writer JoNel Aleccia in an article about how ethicists argue that patients should weigh overall options and not individual risks.

Patients awaiting organ transplants should decide in advance whether they're willing to take substandard kidneys, livers and other organs, including those at risk for infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis C. That's the conclusion of University of Pennsylvania scientists and ethicists who want to overhaul a piecemeal system they say fails to adequately inform some patients of potential problems while allowing others to "cherry-pick" donors, accepting or rejecting specific organs based on certain risk factors at the time of transplant. "What they think might be based on fear or bias," said Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the university's school of medicine and co-author of an article in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more...

June 16, 2008
Karlawish Elected Member of Greenwall Foundation's Board of Directors
Jason Karlawish was elected a member of The Greenwall Foundation's Board of Directors. He is the first alumnus of its Faculty Scholars Program to be elected a Director. "We are, needless to say, pleased to have this Penn presence in our leadership and look forward to having Jason participate in Greenwall's work," said William C. Stubing, president of the foundation.

June 6, 2008
Customized vitamins a fix for genetic flaws?
In a San Francisco Chronicle article by medical writer Sabin Russell, Arthur Caplan discusses the ethical questions raised by research into the possibility of using vitamins treatments to cure the subtle genetics flaws that can harm health found by high-speed gene-reading machines.

Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, said the issues surrounding the use of genetic information to enhance performance are complex. "The idea that we are going to modify diet, modify sleep, modify exercise is well established in sports," he said. "On the one hand, we don't like steroids, we don't want blood doping. On the other hand, most top-flight athletes have a dietician and nutritionist watching every calorie." Read more...

June 6, 2008
N.Y. considers creating special 'organ-removal' ambulance
In a USA Today article, Arthur Caplan discusses the New York City's consideration of a plan to create a special ambulance whose crew would rush to collect the newly deceased and preserve the body so that the organs might be taken for transplant.

A lot of people don't trust the medical system to begin with, and in the city, you have additional class and race issues to deal with," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "I could very easily see a family saying, 'If it was a white, rich person, that person would have been saved. But instead you've sent the meat wagon."' Read more...

June 5, 2008
Study secretly tracks foreign cell phone users
In a Mercury News article by John Schwartz, Arthur Caplan considers the ethics issues raised by researchers using sensitive location-tracking data from 100,000 cell phones to study behavior without the owners' knowledge.

There are serious ethical issues as well, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. While researchers are generally free to observe people in public places without getting permission from them or review from institutional ethics boards, Caplan said, "your cell phone is not something I would consider a public entity." Read more...

June 4, 2008
From the Master of Bioethics Program:
Bioethics Crisis Looms Unless NIH Changes Course, Critics Warn
A Chronicle of Higher Education article states that the NIH laments the "dearth of leadership" in bioethics and calls for more new scholars in the field.

The nation is adrift when it comes to the academic field of bioethics, according to two prominent medical officials, who call on the National Institutes of Health to chart a strategic plan for training more people in that area and for conducting more research into ethical aspects of medicine. The dearth of leadership and support for that work erodes public trust in government-supported medical-research programs, which pour billions of dollars into academic medical centers, according to the officials, who published two separate commentaries in the June issue of Academic Medicine. Read more...

June 3, 2008
Halpern chosen as a 2008 Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar
Scott Halpern has been chosen as one of the 2008 Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars. The Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar Program is a career development program that enables junior faculty members to carry out original research on policy and moral dilemmas at the intersection of ethics and the life sciences.

May 28, 2008
Doctors Deny Lesbian Artificial Insemination
Arthur Caplan discusses how the fertility industry is rife with bias, prejudice, and discrimination in an ABC News article by Susan Donaldson James.

When Guadalupe Benitez was referred by her endocrinologist to a California medical clinic to treat her polycystic ovary syndrome, she didn't expect to get "dumped" by her doctors. In 1999, after a year of surgeries and hormone treatments - all covered by insurance - Benitez was finally ready to get pregnant by artificial insemination. But at the crucial moment, her doctor refused to do the procedure for "religious" reasons. Read more...

May 27, 2008
Of Colons and Candidates
In a Science Progress blog entry, Jonathan Moreno discusses how the general question of balancing politicians' privacy and the public's right is relevant again.

In 1985 the American public was treated to detailed information about President Reagan's colon when he was diagnosed and successfully treated for cancer. I wondered in a Washington Post Health Section column at that time how much intimate knowledge about a president's, or any elected official's, physical condition the American public was entitled to have. Aren't even presidents entitled to some privacy? Read more...

May 22, 2008
'Blade Runner' ruling subverts nature of sport
Artificial legs would make for artificial competition at Beijing Olympics writes Arthur Caplan in his latest commentary for MSNBC.com

Should anyone who must run on prosthetic legs be allowed to compete in the Olympics or other sporting events? Oscar Pistorius, a college student from South Africa, has been told he can compete in the Beijing games this August, in either the 400-meter or the 1600-meter relay race as a member of the South African team, if he can reach a qualifying time. The decision has been greeted around the world with approval. Some see it as a triumph for the disabled. It is easy to see why. Pistorius, known as the Blade Runner, is a very appealing, articulate young man who trains hard and sincerely wants a chance to compete. But I am not sure letting him run is the right decision. Read more...

May 20, 2008
Root Wolpe receives first Health and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award
The Health and Societies class of 2008 and the Health and Societies Student Advisory Board of the University of Pennsylvania have selected Paul Root Wolpe as the recipient of the first annual Health and Societies Faculty Appreciation Award for Distinguished Teaching. The award is in recognition of Dr. Root Wolpe's dedication to teaching outstanding bioethics courses to Health and Societies majors.

May 14, 2008
Giving Living Short Shrift?
On NPR's "Talk of the Nation", Arthur Caplan discusses a new plan by New York City officials to launch a special ambulance service in about a month that would help preserve the organs of the "newly deceased" -- the Rapid Organ Recovery Ambulance service. The idea is to keep the organs "fresh" until the relatives of the dead individual can be contacted to see if they would be willing to donate their loved ones organs. The officials hope this would help more of the patients who are the long waiting list for organ transplants. But some ethicists and emergency medicine experts are worried that the new service could create a tension for EMTs as they respond to an emergency, and who, as ABC News reports, "may be charged both to save lives and to preserve organs for reuse."

May 8, 2008
Free pens and pizza come at a high cost for docs
In his latest column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that a marketing ban at medical schools is the ethical prescription.

The American Association of Medical Colleges recently released a long-awaited report recommending that pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers knock off their efforts to bribe medical students and faculty. The Association said in no uncertain terms: No more freebies. That means no more doling out free lunches, tickets, trips, pens, binders, flashdrives, bookbags, free samples and other trinkets in classrooms, offices, exam rooms and reception areas of medical schools. Read more...

May 1, 2008
Ulrich Receives Junior Faculty Research Award
Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, was award the Junior Faculty Research Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. This award is given to a junior faculty member who has made a distinguished contribution to nursing scholarship. The person will have shown evidence of significant and outstanding contributions to nursing scholarship through funded research, publications, major reports, offices, and regional or national leadership. This person will also have shown evidence of influence on the discipline and profession of nursing, and evidence of local, regional and national recognition.

May 1, 2008
Halpern Appointed to American Thoracic Society's Ethics Committee
Scott Halpern, MD, PhD, MBE, has been appointed to the American Thoracic Society's (ATS) Committee on Ethics and Conflict of Interest for 2008-2009. The committee recommends to the Board policies for managing ethical issues and conflicts of interest to ensure the ethical conduct of ATS affairs. The Committee monitors relevant policies of other societies and reviews recommendations from healthcare experts, ethicists, and other resources to maintain the professional standing and integrity of the Society in all of its affairs. In addition, the Committee serves as a resource to advise the ATS President and Executive Committee on rapidly emerging issues related to organizational ethics and conflict of interest.

April 25, 2008
It's not immoral to want to be immortal
Arthur Caplan says that fears of a world of geezers who hog up all the resources are overblown in this commentary for MSNBC.com.

Is it right to want to try to live forever? This ethical question is being kicked around quite a bit these days. As the science of regenerative medicine using stem cells inches forward, as more is understood about how lifestyle influences longevity, as organ and tissue transplants become routine and as geneticists begin to unravel the secrets of why we age, the prospect of living forever - or at least until the Cubs win a pennant - makes the question something more than an exercise in science fiction. Read more...

April 22, 2008
Genetic Non-Discrimination Policy Considerations in the Age of Genetic Medicine
Jonathan Moreno, with Michael Rugnetta and Jonathan Russell, discusses how there are many uncertainties to consider as genetic medicine gets increasingly personal.

The world stands on the brink of a genome-based personalized-medicine revolution, with individual Americans poised to be the greatest beneficiaries. An international research consortium that includes our country's National Human Genome Research Institute recently announced its $50 million plan to sequence the genomes of at least 1,000 individuals from around the world. According to NHGHRI Director Francis Collins, this project will increase the sensitivity of disease discovery efforts across the human genome five-fold, and within gene regions (the portions of a chromosome on which a particular gene is located) at least 10-fold. Read more...

April 21, 2008
Intelligent design film far worse than stupid
In his latest column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan writes that Ben Stein's so-called documentary 'Expelled' isn't just bad, it's immoral.

Rarely has a movie subtitle so capably assessed a movie's content as does "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." There is not a shred of intelligence on display in this just released "documentary" purporting to be a careful examination of the fight over teaching creationism and evolution in America. Read more...

April 7, 2008
Voices in the Family "Alzheimer's Disease"
12pm on WHYY-FM

A new study claims that roughly 18 percent of baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. This week on Voices in the Family, host Dr. Dan Gottlieb will discuss research, treatment and caregiving with his guests: Claire Day, director for Programs and Education with the Alzheimer's Association of the Delaware Valley, and Dr. Jason Karlawish, associate professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Education Core of the Alzheimer's Disease Center.

April 1, 2008
Children's health can't be left to faith alone
Arthur Caplan says that when parents won't seek medical care, they must be punished by law in his most recent column for MSNBC.com

Ava Worthington is dead. She was only 15 months old when she died. The people responsible are her parents, who relied only on prayer as their child expired before their eyes. The question is whether they deserve to be put on trial for doing so. I think they do. Read more...

March 25, 2008
Why the Next Civil Rights Battle Will Be Over the Mind
Paul Root Wolpe and Arthur Caplan are quoted in a Wired magazine article discussing eroding boundaries of the privacy of our brains.

Trolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice. "Who's there? Who's there?" she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull. Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. Read more...

March 24, 2008
David Perlman Selected as 2008 Recipient of SNAP Award for Exception Undergraduate Teaching
David Perlman, Ph.D. has been selected as the 2008 recipient of the SNAP Award for Exceptional Undergraduate Teaching. This is the first year the award is being given. The SNAP Award is given by the undergraduate student body and seeks to recognizes faculty members who are dynamic, innovative and inspiring to students.

March 14, 2008
A Shot In the Rear: Why Are We Really Against Steroids
In an article for Science Progress, Arthur Caplan writes that recent investigations into performance-enhancing drug use in professional sports has driven debate over the substances in the public square. But when making decisions about steroids, one size does not fit all, and there's more to consider than just "did he or didn't he?"

Professional and amateur sports are awash in steroids and have been for many years. It seems self-evident that this is a problem. The amount of media and political attention paid to steroids and other pharmacologic forms of enhancement in sports might even suggest that it is one of the greatest moral problems the world faces. Someday we may get drugs that do what steroids do without any real risk of harm to the user. Would we still want them banned? Read more...

March 10, 2008
Introducing Penn's Center for Bioethics Mediation Services
The Center for Bioethics is proud to introduce Bioethics mediation services , training, and consulting for health care institutions. For more information, please see the Penn Center for Bioethics Mediation Service brochure.

March 9, 2008
Donald Light Selected as Visiting Scholar by the Leverhulme Trust
The Leverhulme Trust in London has selected Donald Light to be a visiting professor this spring to give a series of lectures and meet with colleagues throughout England interested in economic and medical sociology. Light's lectures will reflect his studies of the sociology of altruism in medical and other markets, informal economic behavior, rationing in waiting lists, the risks of pharmaceutical proliferation, the commercialization of vaccines for the poor, and public sociology for distributive injustices.

March 3, 2008
ACLM makes Arthur Caplan an Honorary Fellow
On March 1, 2008, the American College of Legal Medicine made Arthur Caplan an Honorary Fellow at the organization's annual meeting in Houston, Texas.

February 26, 2008
"Neuroscience at War: Mind Wars Trans-Atlantic Discussion"
Jonathan Moreno and William Safire, chairman of the Dana Foundation, discuss neuroethics and war in the first neuroscience podcast coproduced by Nature and the Dana Foundation.

Frank and serious talk about the military's use of mind control is rare outside the social circles of conspiracy theorists.
But at a recent trans-Atlantic discussion at the Dana centers in Washington, D.C., and London, professors of ethics, neuroscience and peace studies linked current research to forecast advancements in neurological warfare, including fear- and sleep-reducing drugs and hormones for facilitating interrogations. Author and professor Jonathan Moreno set the stage by describing a meeting of neuroethicists he attended a few years ago. "Nobody had mentioned the possibility of military use of neuroscience," he said. "Interest in the science of the brain has traveled a long way." Read more or watch the podcast...

February 20, 2008
Dr. Ulrich Receives NIH R21 Award
Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Nursing Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, has received an R21 award from the NIH National Institute of Nursing Research for her ethics study on Respondent Burden and Retention in Cancer Clinical Trials.

To date, many studies have examined barriers to clinical trial recruitment; however, we know substantially less about the factors that contribute to successful completion of clinical trials and we know virtually nothing from the subjects' perspective. Therefore, to address this complex and underdeveloped area of research, Dr. Ulrich and her team will use an innovative mixed methods design using both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore what adult cancer subjects perceive as burdensome in clinical research in relationship to perceived or anticipated benefits, to understand the frequency, severity, and impact of burden and other factors on retention decisions, and preliminary instrument construction of a decisional balance (benefit-burden) measure to understand subjects' decisions related to cancer clinical trial retention.

Dr. Ulrich's study will be one of the first to contribute new knowledge about benefit and burden from the subject's perspective. The findings from this study will make a major contribution to our understanding of human decision making in cancer clinical trials research and significantly inform the entire research process.

February 18, 2008
MBe Alumni Discuss Bioethics Issues on the Radio
2003 MBe graduate Anthony "Mazz" Mazzarelli, MD, JD, MBe is the host of "1210 Tonight with Anthony Mazzarelli". Once a week he is joined by fellow 2003 graduate David Sontag, JD, MBe for "The Moral Compass" on Philadelphia's WPHT radio station (1210 AM). With interesting bioethical issues, usually straight from the current headlines, "The Moral Compass" show will get listeners to recalibrate their Moral Compass. David Sontag always brings fascinating topics to the show and, of course, Mazz always has an opinion. There is no question, however, that this show is about what the listeners think. Mazz makes sure listeners get to express their opinions and then David turns those opinions on their heads.

February 15, 2008
Technology raises questions for bioethicists
The Daily Pennsylvanian reports on a Penn ACLU's Rights Week event featuring Paul Root Wolpe discussing the legal implications of brain imaging.

Next time you watch Meet the Parents, the lie detector test used on Ben Stiller will be out of date - some companies are now replacing the old polygraphs with new imaging techniques. Yesterday Paul Wolpe, chief bioethicist for NASA, senior fellow of the Penn Center for Bioethics and Sociology professor, spoke to students about emerging brain imaging technology and the underlying ethical and legal implications of these innovations. The increasing utilization of fMRI, fNIR and thermographic imaging for lie detection were among the main topics of discussion. Read more...

January 28, 2008
Lies, Damn Lies, and Lie Detectors
Paul Root Wolpe's "Lies, Damn Lies, and Lie Detectors" is included in the Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2008, their annual snapshot of the emerging shape of business.

Deceit is ubiquitous yet difficult to detect. It's no surprise, then, that throughout recorded history people have tried to devise techniques for detecting lies. Until recently, we had not improved very much on the methods of the ancient Greeks, who took the pulse of a suspect under questioning-a rudimentary polygraph in concept. But recent research using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, has begun to identify the areas of the brain involved in deception. These laboratory experiments (many done by coauthor Daniel D. Langleben) suggest that accurate, reliable lie detection is finally within reach. They have also sparked interest from the law enforcement, defense, and business communities. Two start-ups (No Lie MRI and Cephos) have already been launched to offer commercial fMRI lie-detection services.

January 24, 2008
Emory's Center for Ethics Appoints Paul Root Wolpe as New Director
Paul Root Wolpe has been appointed director of Emory University's Center for Ethics. A professor of sociology in Penn's Department of Psychiatry, Wolpe succeeds former director James Fowler, Candler Professor of Theology and Human Development, who retired from Emory in 2005. Associate director Kathy Kinlaw, who also directs the center's work in health sciences and ethics, will continue to serve as interim director until Wolpe begins his position Aug.1. "The university is thrilled to have lured a scholar and administrator of Paul Root Wolpe's caliber to lead the next phase in the history of the Center for Ethics at Emory," said Provost Earl Lewis. "Wolpe is an internationally recognized scholar, a bridge builder, and one committed to charting new possibilities for the role of ethics on campus and in the broader community. He is the ideal successor to former director Jim Fowler."

"I am honored that Emory has chosen me to direct the future development of the university's renowned Center for Ethics," Wolpe said. "I look forward to collaborating with faculty and staff from around the university to promote ethics scholarship in business, medicine, law and across the sciences and humanities. As a university dedicated to ethical engagement and leadership, I hope to help the center deepen its place in the heart of Emory."

Source: Emory University press release

January 17, 2008
Human embryos cloned: What does it mean?
Arthur Caplan discusses how a private lab's research may become source of stem cells used to treat diseases in his latest MSNBC.com column.

Stemagen, a private company in La Jolla, Calif., has published a paper in which its scientists claim they have successfully created cloned human embryos. If you think you have heard this announcement before, you are right. Just about two years ago, a team of scientists at Seoul National University in Korea announced in the journal Science that they had cloned human embryos and had gotten stem cells to grow from them. The Korean work could not be replicated. Eventually Hwang woo-suk, the lead scientist involved, admitted he had lied. There were no cloned embryos. He resigned his university position in complete disgrace. So, two questions arise about today's human cloning news. Did Stemagen scientists really do what they are saying they did? If they did, what does it mean for the future of human cloning and stem cell research? Read more...

January 15, 2008
Minnesota's Public Radio: Big Bioethics Issues of 2008
From MPR's website: "From stem cell breakthroughs to organ selling to health care reform, ethical questions abound in the areas of medicine and health care. One of the country's foremost bioethicists, Art Caplan, discusses the most relevant issues that will arise in bioethics in the coming year on MPR."

January 15, 2008
Don't ask, don't tell is bad policy for cloned food
In his latest column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan discusses how while cloned meat, milk may be safe, we should still know we're eating it.

The Food and Drug Administration has spoken: meat, milk, cheese and other products from cloned animals are safe to eat. And the federal agency won't require any special labels identifying these products. There is no reason to doubt the FDA's science. It is as careful a review as possible. The agency reviewed dozens of studies from around the world without finding any evidence that meat or milk from cloned animals is in any way biologically distinguishable from meat and milk from any other animal. So is the debate over the use of cloned animals for food now over? Hardly. Read more...

January 14, 2008
National Public Radio's Justice Talking presents: "Neurolaw: The New Frontier"

Some lawyers are using brain scans showing defects to argue that their clients aren't responsible for criminal behavior. This neuroscientific evidence has been increasingly used in our courtrooms, but some scientists argue that the imaging is still new and unreliable. Others question whether juries should be ruling on what counts as a "defective" brain. Neurolaw could potentially revolutionize our notions of guilt and punishment as criminals say "my brain made me do it." Might we be, one day, just a brain scan away from a form of lie detection and prediction of criminal behavior?

Guests include neurologist Larry Farwell, inventor of "brain fingerprinting" technology; Mary Kennedy, pioneering neurolaw attorney; Carter Snead, a former general counsel to the President's Council on Bioethics; Joshua Greene, a neurologist and philosopher at Harvard; Stephen Morse, a professor of psychology and law in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania; and Paul Root Wolpe of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

January 4, 2008
Life and death situation
Arthur Caplan is questioned by Sport Illustrated's Gabriele Marcotti about the issue of young and fit professional soccer players dying in the prime of their careers.

"Playing sports is good for your health. Playing professional sport often isn't." Gianluca Vialli's words came to mind in the aftermath of the tragic and sudden death of Motherwell midfielder Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed during his club's match against Dundee United. The cause of O'Donnell's death was heart failure, and he joins the likes of Antonio Puerta, Miklos Feher and Marc-Vivien Foe on the sad list of footballers who passed away on the pitch in the prime of their careers. In the aftermath of O'Donnell's death, the Professional Footballers' Association has asked that clubs do a better job screening players for heart conditions and, generally, do more to safeguard their health. It's a reasonable request to, hopefully, stave off something which is totally unreasonable: very fit and healthy young men dying on the job. At the professional level, however, the onus should be on players, not clubs, to safeguard the health of footballers. In fact, this applies to pretty much every sport. A few months ago, I sat down with Art Caplan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world's foremost bio-ethicists and a consultant to FIFA. He made a very obvious -- but, sadly, often ignored -- point: When it comes to a player's health, there is a potential conflict of interest between the athlete and his employer. Read more...

January 1, 2008
2008: A year already worth forgetting
In a column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan shares his bleak predictions for 2008 about stem cell research, HIV vaccines and pandemic risks.

This is the time of year when, optimism firmly in hand, we anticipate all the great things that await us. Not gonna happen, at least when it comes to scientific and medical progress. I arrive bearing bad news about the coming year. Plenty of it. So, ye be warned! My predictions for 2008. Read more...

December 27, 2007
UN Working to Step Illegal Organ Trafficking
Arthur Caplan is interviewed by United Nations Radio as part of their report on illegal organ trafficking.

December 14, 2007
Does this man look black to you?
Arthur Caplan discussed how DNA pioneer's own genes raise questions about the meaning of race in his latest column for MSNBC.

One of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century should now be attributed to a black man, or so it seems.
James Watson, the man who worked with Francis Crick to identify the double-helical structure of DNA, who upon casual inspection might well qualify for the title of "most blatantly Caucasian male" among a raft of serious contenders that includes Mitt Romney, Tucker Carlson, Harry Reid and Peyton Manning, is actually black! An Iceland-based genomics company, deCODE genetics, conducted an analysis of Watson's DNA, which Watson had allowed to be placed on the Internet, and found that 16 percent of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor. The flamboyant head of deCODE, Kari Stefansson, himself a strong contender for the most obviously Caucasian male award, whose company carried out the analysis, said in a classic bit of white male understatement, "It was very surprising to get this result for Jim." Read more...

November 30, 2007
Despite AIDS vaccine failure, quest must go on
Arthur Caplan says that the battle to stop the disease requires time, persistence and boldness in his latest column for MSNBC.com.

This year's World AIDS Day is coming at a time of extremely mixed emotions - staggering disappointment, cautious optimism and a resolve to remain vigilant. Some want to use the occasion to remind people at high risk to practice safe sex, noting a bump in the number of gay men infected with the disease. Others point out how India, China and some other nations - hoping to prevent new, massive explosions of the disease - are responding with aggressive public health and education campaigns. Still others are simply satisfied to note that existing drugs have transformed AIDS from a death sentence into a miserable chronic disease. But the biggest challenge against the wily, rapidly evolving virus that causes AIDS is the fallout from a catastrophic setback in developing a vaccine - grumbling that perhaps it is time to give up the effort. Read more...

November 20, 2007
'Panacea' cells revive ancient hopes
Arthur Caplan discusses how a new stem cell discovery opens new doors but how we shouldn't shut the others just yet in his latest column for MSNBC.com

In the Middle Ages, the alchemists believed someday they'd find a magical tool that could transmute lead into gold, metals into medicines and plants and animal tissues into powerful elixirs - a panacea that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. This week, it appears that the object of their long-ago yearnings has been discovered. Scientists announced they have reprogrammed the genes of ordinary cells from human skin to make what I'm terming "panacea" cells. These cells can be used to create embryonic-like stem cells that one day could fix many different disorders and diseases that are now beyond cure. Read more...

November 15, 2007
Cloned Monkeys
Scientists in Oregon have successfully cloned monkey embryos to harvest stem cells... might human cloning be next? Arthur Caplan discusses the bioethics implications of the cloning of Rhesus monkeys from embryos at Oregon Primate Research Center in an interview by "Here & Now" on WBUR, Boston's NPR radio station.

November 13, 2007
Monkey cloning a reason to pause, not panic
In a column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan discusses how the Oregon breakthrough that brings us closer than ever to cloning human embryos.

For quite some time many important and influential people have been freaking out over the prospect of cloning a human being. When Dolly the cloned sheep's existence was revealed to the world 10 years ago, panic ensued. World leaders - including the president, the pope and numerous prime ministers - condemned Dolly's creation as a regrettable and dangerous step toward cloning a human being.

At the time my view was there was no reason for panic. It took more than 250 pregnancies to produce Dolly and the odds of that same cloning process working in humans were not great. In the years since Dolly was born, the only scientist who claimed any success in cloning human embryos was in Korea, and it quickly was proven that Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk and his team had lied when they claimed success. In fact, no scientists anywhere in the world had managed to clone any sort of primate. No monkey, gorilla, chimp or orangutan embryos or adults were ever successfully cloned. So there was no reason for popes and presidents and potentates to worry.

Now, news has broken that a team at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton, Ore., has succeeded in cloning 20 macaque monkey embryos. The techniques they used to achieve this monumental breakthrough in cloning work were the same as were used to make Dolly the sheep, but with fewer toxic chemicals. This is so significant because what works in monkeys usually works in people.

But there still is no reason to panic. Read more...

October 29, 2007
Dr. Renée Fox awarded ASBH Lifetime Achievement Award
At the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, the national professional society for scholars of bioethics and the medical humanities, President Paul Root Wolpe (left) awarded Renée Fox (right) the Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes outstanding contributions and significant publications that have helped shape the direction of the fields of bioethics and humanities. Both Drs. Wolpe and Fox are Fellows of the Center for Bioethics.

For more information on Dr. Fox and the award, please visit the ASBH website.

October 15, 2007
Dr. David Asch Elected to Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine announced that David A. Asch, M.D., M.B.A, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Bioethics, has been elected as a member. Dr. Asch, the Robert D. Eilers Professor of Health Care Management and Economics and executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at Penn, is one of 65 individuals this year to receive this prestigious honor. The Institute of Medicine is a component of the National Academies established to provide scientifically informed analysis and independent guidance to policy-makers and the public.

October 11, 2007
Bioethics and Lie Detectors
In a video interview for PBS' Wired Science, Paul Root Wolpe discusses the ethical implications of lie detector tests.

October 10, 2007
Science Progress
Center for Bioethics professor Jonathan Moreno is editing a new science and science policy magazine, "Science Progress," a project of the Center for American Progress, where Moreno is a senior fellow. The goal of Science Progress is to develop exciting, progressive ideas about science and innovation and communicate those ideas to opinion leaders and the public. Center for Bioethics director Arthur Caplan and senior fellow Paul Root Wolpe are members of the editorial board.

Science Progress' website has already launched.

September 28, 2007
Report paints grim picture of drug trial safety
Arthur Caplan discusses that while criticism of FDA's weak oversight are on target, Congress shares the blame.

When a bridge collapses in an American city or a mine implodes, it does not take long before government gets in motion to figure out what to do about the problem. We see the carnage and demand action. When a federal agency charged with protecting your health and safety is found grossly deficient, the response, sadly, is mainly talk. That is because it is hard to see where the victims are and, without them, it is hard to get the problem fixed. But when it comes to the Food and Drug Administration, we had better demand repairs. Read more...

September 25, 2007
The Bioethics of Gene Therapy
How informed should a patient be when taking part in gene therapy research? Arthur Caplan discusses the case of Jolee Mohr, a 36-year-old married mother who died after participating in a gene therapy research trial in an interview by "Here & Now" on WBUR, Boston's NPR radio station.

September 18, 2007
Giving up on gene therapy is wrong reaction
Death of Jolee Mohr should lead to new patient protections says Arthur Caplan in his latest MSNBC.com column.

The recent death of Jolee Mohr is likely to have a seismic impact on the future of gene therapy research. Biotech companies, private investors and government funders will shy away from sponsoring further research because Mohr died while a subject in an experiment using genetic engineering to treat disease. But giving up on gene therapy is not the right lesson to learn from this tragedy. Read more...

September 14, 2007
Women should be wary of genetic risk ads
In his latest MSNBC commentary, Arthur Caplan discusses how women should be wary of the public-awareness campaign launched by Myriad for its genetic testing service. The campaign's TV commercials exploit fear of breast cancer in the guise of education.

Myriad Genetics, a Salt Lake City biotechnology company, has seen its stock price rise in the past few days. My hunch is investors are responding to the company's unprecedented direct-to-consumer television advertising campaign aimed at women concerned about breast and ovarian cancer. It would be fair to say that this encompasses just about every woman in the world old enough to have heard of breast cancer or ovarian cancer. Read more...

September 7, 2007
Students' meningitis shots should be required
Arthur Caplan discusses how Americans hate to be told what to do, but we hate losing our kids more in his latest column for MSNBC.com

Which is scarier to you - coming down with deadly bacterial meningitis or being required to get a vaccination against it? The disease itself should scare the living daylights out of you, especially if you are an adolescent or the parent of one. Yet it is the idea of mandatory vaccination that strikes fear in many. Read more...

September 5, 2007
VaccineEthics.org Completes Expansion
The Center for Bioethics is pleased to announce the completion of a major expansion and redesign of VaccineEthics.org, the first and only website devoted to the ethical issues raised by vaccine research, regulation, and policy. New features include a fully-searchable bibliography of over 850 references, "Issue Briefs" examining key topics in vaccine ethics, and a directory of online vaccine information sources. The site's vaccine news and commentary blog can now be found at blog.vaccineethics.org. VaccineEthics.org is supported by a grant from The Greenwall Foundation.

August 15, 2007
Privacy is true price of healthy worker discounts
Arthur Caplan discusses how even fit folks should resist the temptation of lower deductibles in his latest MSNBC.com column.

The latest fad in American health care is to give discounts to workers who are healthy. Many corporate CEOs and their benefits department managers are showing enthusiasm for the idea that workers who don't take care of themselves ought to pay more for health insurance. Like a lot of temptations, this one is attractive. Why should you pay the same rate for insurance as that bloated, pasty oaf of a co-worker down the hall? Read more...

August 13, 2007
Moreno Appointed to National Academies' Board of Life Sciences
Jonathan D. Moreno, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed to serve a 3-year term on the National Academies' Board on Life Sciences. The Board on Life Sciences serves as the National Academies' focal point for a wide range of technical and policy topics in the life sciences, including bioterrorism, genomics, biodiversity conservation, and key topics in basic biomedical research, such as stem cells. The Board organizes and oversees studies that provide advice to government and the scientific community on the biological sciences and their impact on society.

The National Academies perform an unparalleled public service by bringing together committees of experts in all areas of scientific and technological endeavor. These experts serve pro bono to address critical national issues and give advice to the federal government and the public. The National Academies are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology and health policy advice under a congressional charter.

August 8, 2007
Caplan Interviewed by Boston's NPR
WBUR's "Here & Now" interviews Arthur Caplan about two recent cases concerning brain-damaged patients: A surgeon is accused of hastening the death of a patient in order to harvest his organs, and electrodes restore one man's ability to speak, eat and move.

August 3, 2007
Pour the bottled-water trend down the drain
Arthur Caplan says to turn on the tap and quench your thirst with pure water, not wasted oil in his latest MSNBC.com column.

So at this fashionable eatery, I asked for tap water. Eyeballs rolled, but I was right in my request. Why? Because it's time for those of us who care about the environment and are concerned about global warming to stop buying and drinking bottled water. Read more...

July 16, 2007
That Laws May Serve
In an Op/Ed for Richnod Times-Dispatch, Nick Helentjaris, a Department of Medical Ethics graduate student, discusses how a special panel investigating the massacre at Virginia Tech appealed for access to the killer's medical records only to find that federal and state privacy laws safeguarded the confidentiality of such information even after a patient's death.

July 13, 2007
Finding an Ethical Way to Avoid a Libyan Death Sentence
Libya's reaffirmation of the death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of transmitting the aids virus to more than 400 Libyan children continues to pressure all sides to find a suitable outcome. In an interview with Howard Lesser of Voice of America's "Daybreak Africa", Arthur Caplan discusses how carrying out this week's decision by Libya's supreme court does not serve the interests of the parties involved, especially given Libya's dramatic diplomatic rehabilitation. Audio recording available.

July 12, 2007
The News Grid Midday Interview
Arthur Caplan discusses the latest controversies i medical ethics as well as the new Michael Moore documentary Sicko in interview aired on Minnesota's Public Radio.

June 28, 2007
Nothing funny about 'Sicko' state of health care
In a review of the new documentary "Sicko", Arthur Caplan discusses how Gitmo prisoners get better medical treatment than Sept. 11 rescue workers.

A number of reviewers have described "Sicko," Michael Moore's new documentary film about health care in the United States, as funny. It isn't. Sure there is a chuckle or two to be had. You have to smile when Moore uses '50s-style anti-communist film clips to mock the fear-mongering American politicians engage in whenever the subject turns to "socialized" medicine, or when he is bellowing through a bullhorn while bobbing in a boat in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, begging for the same level of health care for workers injured in Sept. 11 rescue efforts as we afford the evildoers locked up in maximum security at Gitmo. Read more...

June 27, 2007
Should kids be conceived after a parent dies?
In a special report for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan says it's time for some legal limits on posthumous reproduction.

The death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to climb, and President Bush is warning that even heavier casualties lie ahead in the months to come. As a result, some American women are being faced with a tragic choice: Should they have a dead soldier's child? There are no clear statistics, but a number of men - some married, some not - deposited their sperm before they were sent to war. This raises a number of questions: Who should be allowed to use that sperm? How many times? How long after the death of the donor? And how long should the sperm be kept frozen if no one claims it? Read more...

June 22, 2007
Bad Medicine, Again: Bush Stem Cell Veto All Wrong
Jonathan Moreno discusses how although the weight of science and the strength of bipartisanship stand behind stem cell research, the president won't listen. Co-written with Sam Berger.

In a dubious historic achievement, the Bush White House has now twice exercised its veto over a bill that was twice passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress-once when Congress was controlled by Republicans, once when controlled by Democrats. The bill that would make more stem cell lines eligible for federal research funding is supported by a solid majority of Americans in every survey and by every major medical research organization and university in the country. Read more...

June 20, 2007
Media's cooing over sextuplets is a disservice
In his latest column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan discusses how news outlets go gaga and forget to report the downside of megamultiples.

One of the biggest problems arising when megamultiples - more than three babies born all at one time - arrive is the gushing media coverage of the births. First, there's the dash to get a camera into the nursery for baby pictures. Exhausted moms are interviewed right after birth, dazed but thrilled about their little miracles. Dads are shown looking exhausted and overwhelmed as they meet their basketball or hockey team to be. Read more...

June 14, 2007
Penn Medical Ethics Professor Appointed to National Research Council Committee

Jonathan Moreno, PhD, has been appointed to the National Research Council (NRC) "Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for Emergent Physiological and Cognitive/Neural Science Research in the Next Two Decades." Dr. Moreno, who is Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, and Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the Penn, was nominated for his expertise in neuroethics and bioethics.

According to the NRC, the committee will develop approaches to identification of trends in physiological and cognitive/neural science research that may help the U.S. Intelligence Community anticipate the state of such research internationally in the year 2027 and, especially, to help prepare for possible implications affecting future U.S. warfighting capabilities.

Dr. Moreno is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, where he has served on numerous boards and committees. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. and a Visiting Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia. >From 1998 to 2006, Dr. Moreno held the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Chair in Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia. He co-chaired the Committee on Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research, has served as a senior staff member for two presidential advisory committees, and has given invited testimony for both houses of Congress. Dr. Moreno has published more than 250 papers, reviews and book chapters, and is a member of several editorial boards. Dr. Moreno's most recent book is Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press, 2006). He is a frequent guest on news and information programs and is often cited and quoted in major national publications.

June 6, 2007
Does stem cell advance provide an ethical out?
Arthur Caplan discusses how doctors and funders shouldn't put all their embryos in one basket in his latest commentary for MSNBC.com.

June 1, 2007
Assisted suicide debate has passed Dr. Death by
In his latest commentary for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan discusses why we shouldn't listen to a word Jack Kevorkian says now that he's back.

May 24, 2007
Old fears draining the U.S. blood supply
Arthur Caplan discusses how amid a growing shortage, gay men should be allowed to donate blood in his latest MSNBC.com commentary.

May 21, 2007
New machine keeps 'heart in a box' beating
In this latest commentary for MSNBS, Arthur Caplan discusses how a new advance, while it is macabre, could bring longer life to donated organs.

May 10, 2007
A Hole in Mental Healthcare
Recent high-profile murder cases have put the spotlight on the U.S. mental healthcare system. Arthur Caplan says the crimes highlight "pathetic" inadequacies and failures and proposes some difficult and controversial remedies in an interview with NPR's "Here & Now".

April 23, 2007
Broken mental-health system puts us at risk
Arthur Caplan discusses how the Virginia Tech and spate of other killings reveal danger of ignoring mental illness in his latest MSNBC.com commentary.

April 17, 2007
Blind faith on sex-ed approach puts kids at risk
In his latest column for MSNBC.com, Arthur Caplan discusses how the bullheaded Bush administration puts abstinence ideology before lives.

April 7, 2007
Vaccine Ethics Interview
Arthur Caplan was interviewed about vaccine ethics by Seattle Public Radio KEXP's "Mind Over Matters" show. A recording of the interview is available as a podcast on KEXP's website.

March 11, 2007
The Brain on the Stand
Paul Root Wolpe and others discuss Neurolaw in a New York Times Magazine article by Jeffrey Rosen.

February 22, 2007
10 years after Dolly: Clones, crooks and crazies
Arthur Caplan discusses how scientific progress was thwarted by fears and frauds.

February 12, 2007
Scaring off science
Jonathan Moreno discusses how opponents of stem cell research in Missouri are hurting science in the state. Written with Sam Berger.

February 7, 2007
After Ashley: Covering Children with Severe Disabilities
An interview with Leann Frola of Poynter Online, Arthur Caplan shares what he thinks journalists have been missing about the Ashley case and where to go from here.

February 6, 2007
Fact: No link of vaccine, autism
In an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Art Caplan discusses how the urban legend of how mercury in vaccines caused a 20-year explosion in autism in American children has had very real and terrible consequences.

January 22, 2007
'Egg rebate' cracks open an ethics mess
Arthur Caplan discusses how a plan to offer half-price infertility treatments has hatched debate.

January 16, 2007
Promise of pregnancy raises series of what-ifs
Arthur Caplan discusses how womb transplants may now be possible, but that what happens next remains unclear.

January 5, 2007
Is 'Peter Pan' treatment a moral choice?
Arthur Caplan discusses how stunting a disabled child's growth pits comfort against ethics.

January 2, 2007
Decoding the secrets of your brain
Paul Root Wolpe and Arthur Caplan discuss how neuroscience is as controversial as cloning in an article by Alan Boyle, Science Editor at MSNBC.com.

January 2, 2007
Shams, scams and trans fats: Bioethics in 2006
Art Caplan bestows Halos & Horns on year's moral moments

January 2, 2007
Dolly on the dinner table? Don't worry about it
Freaky as it sounds, there's no need to fear food from cloned animals writes Art Caplan.

December 7, 2006
"Science and Society" Podcast
Art Caplan is interviewed by Dr. David Lemberg and Sam Kephart of "Science and Society", a show featuring conversations on medical breakthroughs, energy and the environment, nanotechnology, space exploration, planetary science, and K-12 science education. Each week, "Science and Society" presents interviews with trendsetting and groundbreaking researchers, industry-leading executives, and senior government officials, providing in-depth coverage of our core areas.

December 5, 2006
Make sure your health care workers got flu shot
David Curry and Arthur Caplan discuss just how important it is that health care workers are vaccinated despite the group's resistance.

November 27, 2006
Tough Bioethical Questions Are a Slow Train Coming
In a Q&A with Managed Care Magazine, Arthur Caplan discusses how health care rationing and end-of-life issues may not count in the 2008 election. But just you wait.

November 25, 2006
Genetic Testing and its Implications
In an interview with the Giannino Bassetti Foundation, Art Caplan discusses the implications of genetic screening, pre-natal testing, pre-natal gender selection, reproductive freedom, political education, and neurological enhancement, all within the context of responsibility in innovation, and with a nod to how effects may differ in different cultures around the world.

November 17, 2006
Should we let preemies die or force treatment?
Arthur Caplan discusses how a British council recommendation goes too far - but so does U.S. law.

November 13, 2006
Just because we can do something, should we?
Art Caplan weighs in on the latest controversies in his new book in an interview with MSNBC.com's Health Editor Linda Dahlstrom.

November 2, 2006
Rightwing Attacks on Stem Cell Research Advocate Michael J. Fox Spotlight One of Election 2006's Most Heated Ballot Issues
Arthur Caplan discusses one of the most hotly contested issues in the 2006 elections with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

October 31, 2006
Jonathan Moreno joins the University of Pennsylvania as one of the newest PIK professors
Jonathan D. Moreno from the University of Virginia has been named a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professor at the University of Pennsylvania. PIK is a University-wide initiative, launched in 2005 by Penn President Amy Gutmann, to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines. Dr. Moreno will hold appointments in medical ethics in the School of Medicine and in the history and sociology of science in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Full article here.

October 27, 2006
Life and death race: Politics and stem cell issue
Arthur Capan discusses how disease advocacy lobby and ads by Michael J. Fox could change an election.

October 25, 2006
Test Tube Babies
Medical technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) raise as many questions as they answer. Arthur Caplan appears in American Experience's documentary on the first test tube babies on PBS.

September 25, 2006
Quest for cosmic righteousness NASA's chief bioethicist, Paul Root Wolpe tries to see that its scientific missions do no harm.
The Philadelphia Inquirer does a profile on Paul Root Wolpe and his role as NASA's first chief bioethicist.

September 15, 2006
FDA Announces Renowned Pediatric Ethicist to Join Office of Pediatric Therapeutics
The FDA today announced that on October 16, Robert M. Nelson, M.D., M.Div., Ph.D. will join FDA's Office of Pediatric Therapeutics and will be responsible for providing guidance and advice on ethical issues related to pediatric clinical trials and other pediatric issues involving any product regulated by FDA. Mandated by the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, this pediatric ethicist position was most recently held by Sara Goldkind, M.D., M.A., who was instrumental in significantly furthering the Agency's oversight function for helping to ensure the highest ethical standards in all FDA-related activities, and specifically clinical trials, involving children.

September 12, 2006
PENN Medicine Announces New Leadership for the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania
The newly appointed Director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Craig B. Thompson, MD, has named Caryn Lerman, PhD, Deputy Director, and Joseph R. Carver, MD, Chief of Staff. The appointments of Lerman, Carver, and Thompson provide a leadership team that will allow the Abramson Cancer Center to maintain its position as one of the top five Comprehensive Cancer Centers in National Cancer Institute funding. Together they will oversee 300 active cancer researchers and 299 full-time Penn physicians and faculty from eight Schools and 41 Departments across the University involved in research in cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. They will be responsible for $180 million in grant funding for cancer research and training, including $83.4 million in NCI funding.

August 24, 2006
No prescription for Plan B: It's about time!
Arthur Caplan discusses how politics and ignorance got in the way of public health.

August 24, 2006
Stem cell 'breakthrough' more hype than hope
Arthur Caplan discusses how a new technique raises more ethical questions than real answers and may be more hype than hope.

August 16, 2006
Parents vs. judge: Who picks teen's cancer care?
Arthur Caplan discusses whether a teenage boy in Virginia has the right or refuse chemotherapy or not.

August 16, 2006
Right resolution for difficult case
Art Caplan discusses how the agreement over Virginia teen cancer patient's care makes a lot of sense.

August 9, 2006
Caring for Kids at the End of Life
NPR's "All Things Considered" discusses the end of life care given by Pediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Pediatrician and Senior Fellow Chris Feudtner help start this palliative care team at the hospital.

July 26, 2006
VA CHERP Researcher Receives Presidential Award Philadelphia-Veterans Affairs researcher David Casarett, M.D., M.A. received a 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Bush at the White House on July 26, 2006. The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Established in 1996, these annual awards recognize top young scientists and engineers for their innovative research and their "exceptional potential to shape the future through intellectual and inspired leadership." For more information about Dr. Casarett's research, click here.

July 19, 2006
Bush to stem cell community: Drop Dead
Arthur Caplan discusses how the President's veto of embryonic research funding reflects incoherent policy.

July 11, 2006
Hard to Die
Arthur Caplan discusses what cases like Terry Schiavo's can teach us in The Pennsylvania Gazette.

July 5, 2006
Renowned Bioethicist Sounds Off
Art Caplan is interviewed by Drexel University's online magazine "Dragonfire".

June 13, 2006
Should We or Shouldn't We?
Reed College's Reed magazine asks Arthur Caplan to reflect on the risks and challenges posed by current efforts to create artificial life in the laboratory.

June 9, 2006
We've got a shot against cancer. Will we take it?
Arthur Caplan discusses the tough choices that come with vaccine to prevent sexually transmitted virus.

June 5, 2006
Don't let old fears drain the U.S. blood supply
Arthur Caplan discusses how amid growing shortage, gay men should be allowed to make blood donations.

May 29, 2006
Arthur Caplan discusses what's really scary about bird flu.

May 22, 2006
Arthur Caplan discusses how athletic overseers are skating on thin ice with tent objection.

May 7, 2006
Science Anxiety: Toward a less fearful future
Arthur Caplan discusses the moral standoff that will characterize the 21st century: where genetic engineering ought to take us and whether we are satisfied to leave it to scientists to guide us there.

April 23, 2006
Healing prayers all about faith
Arthur Caplan and former Center fellow Glenn McGee discuss if prayer is really pointless in health care.

April 19, 2006
The Ethics of Vaccines project held its monthly seminar meeting today focused on the ethics of vaccine clinical trials. The panel, moderated by Eric A. Feldman, J.D., PhD, Assistant Professor of Law, Penn Law School, included Susan S. Ellenberg, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics, Associate Dean for Clinical Research, School of Medicine Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Allan Saul, PhD, Co Chief, Malaria Vaccine Development Branch, NIAID, NIH; Andrew F. Trofa, MD, FACP, Director, Clinical Research, Development & Medical Affairs, Vaccines for Viral Diseases, GSK; and Christopher C. Colwell, Director of Healthcare Regulatory Affairs, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

April 9, 2006
Disclose diabetes patient info? No
Arthur Caplan discusses how the disclosure of diabetes patient information violates confidentiality and sets a terrible precedent.

March 19, 2006
'Miracle' TV show lacks reality
Arthur Caplan and former Center fellow Glenn McGee discuss the "Miracle" TV show.

March 16, 2006
The Ethics of Vaccines project is pleased to announce the launch of a news and information website, highlighting the latest coverage of vaccine development, policy, and perspectives in the media and scholarly literature. Visit it here.

February 21, 2006
The Ethics of Vaccines project held its third seminar last Thursday focused on ethics surrounding vaccine delivery at the public health level. Key focus areas included planning for the new HPV vaccines expected this year, and vaccination issues among health care workers. Project working group members Drs. Eddy Bresnitz, Barbara Watson, Neil Fishman and Robert Field were panelists. For a full list of the project working group, please click here.

February 20, 2006
The National Center for Ethics in Health Care is pleased to announce that David J. Casarett, M.D., M.A., is the first recipient of the William A. Nelson Award for Excellence in Health Care Ethics. Dr. Casarett is a physician at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, where he is a member of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. He is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fellow of the University's Institute on Aging.

February 19, 2006
Arthur Caplan and former Center fellow Glenn McGee disucss how the Avian flu crisis tests trust in government and health care.

February 9, 2006
The Losing Battle against Doping
Arthur Caplan discusses why you may be to blame for drugs at the Olympics.

January 19, 2006
The Ethics of Vaccines project held its second seminar today focused on
ethics at the basic research/discovery stage of the vaccine life cycle. CFAR Director Dr.
James Hoxie presented on challenges faced in the search of a vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
Panelists included Drs. Robert Austrian, Hildegund Ertl, and Stanley Plotkin of the
project working group.

January 17, 2006
Arthur Caplan and former Center fellow Glenn McGee discuss the unethical side of tissue-harvesting.

January 1, 2006
Dominic Sisti, former Center researcher, points out something else not accounted for by Intelligent Design:
infectious diseases.

December 18, 2005
Speed of Science
Arthur Caplan and former Center fellow Glenn McGee explain why the race for scientific firsts can sometimes be a big leap backwards.

December 6, 2005
Ethics of Vaccines Project Launched
Will propose ethical framework to help guide researchers, pharmaceutical companies, public health agencies, health care providers and citizens regarding vaccines and their safe, effective and ethical use.

October 21, 2005
Body Worlds
(Real Audio format; Real Player required)
Paul Root Wolpe discusses the Body Worlds exhibit currently in Philadelphia on NPR's Radio Times.

October 19, 2005
Embryonic Stem Cells
David Magnus and Arthur Caplan sound off in favor of expanded stem cell research.

October 14, 2005
Abstinence-only sex education
Arthur Caplan discusses the hypocrisy of abstinence-only sex education courses.

October 6, 2005
Assisted-suicide controversy
Arthur Caplan analyzes the conflict between the federal government and the state of Oregon over their assisted-suicide legislation.

September 20, 2005
The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has elected Dr. Paul Root Wolpe as their next President. The ASBH is the national professional organization for scholars in bioethics and the
medical humanities.

August 4, 2005
Researchers clone dog
In a live web discussion Autumn Fiester weighs in on the announcement that South Korean researchers have successfully cloned a three year old Afghan hound.

June 24, 2005
Face Transplant
As two U.S. medical centers finalize plans for a face transplant, Dr. Caplan states "The risks to the patient are staggering. This is a terrible idea that should not be tried."

April 4, 2005
Dr. Paul Lanken is a recipient of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindbach Teaching Award. This is the highest teaching honor at the University of Pennsylvania.

February 17, 2005
New FDA board has its critics
With recent drug safety issues, FDA creates a advisory board to oversee the drug safety. Dr. Caplan agrees it's a good first step but questions the influence of the board.

January 20, 2005
Fertility clinics vary widely on who gets treatment
A new survey of U.S. fertility clinics found that few have policies for deciding who to help get pregnant. Dr. Caplan explains, "Assisted reproductive technologies are too driven by the desires of couples and not enough by the interests of children"

January 18, 2005
Health officials breathing easier
Dr. Caplan on Trenton Times regarding recent flu vaccine shortage.

January 6, 2005
Military doctors assailed for role in detainee abuse (Baltimore Sun)
Dr. Caplan explains the primary responsibility of a physician

January 6, 2005
The Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania
For more info download PDF

December 20, 2004
Center Website - Beta Version Goes Online
Center for Bioethics/Dept. of Medical Ethics unveils a new website.

December 17, 2004
Father and Son(s)
Arthur Caplan comments on a play openned in NYC that considers what happens to human identity and individuality in a world where people can be cloned.

December 17, 2004
Redesigned Website
Department of Medical Ethics and Center for Bioethics website is redesigned.

December 5, 2004
ADD Grows Up
Arthur Caplan on 60 Minutes

January 14, 2004
The Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program
Apply to this program. Deadline is February 15, 2004.

January 13, 2004
AJOB selected as 'Best New Journal' for 2003
Penn-based American Journal of Bioethics selected as 'Best New Journal' by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals

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