Arthur Caplan

Arthur L. Caplan PhD, is Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Penn in 1994, Caplan taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He was the Associate Director of the Hastings Center from 1984-1987.

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Born in Boston, Caplan did his undergraduate work at Brandeis University, and did his graduate work at Columbia University where he received a Ph.D in the history and philosophy of science.

Caplan is the author or editor of twenty-five books and over 500 papers in refereed journals of medicine, science, philosophy, bioethics and health policy.

He has served on a number of national and international committees including as the Chair National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations on Human Cloning, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Department of Health and Human Services on Blood Safety and Availability, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, the special advisory committee to the International Olympic Committee on genetics and gene therapy, the ethics committee of the American Society of Gene Therapy, and the special advisory panel to the National Institutes of Mental Health on human experimentation on vulnerable subjects. He has consulted with many corporations, not for profit organizations and consumer organizations. He is a member of the board of directors of The Keystone Center, Tengion, the National Center for Policy Research on Women and Families, Octagon, Iron Disorders Foundation and the National Disease Research Interchange. He chairs the advisory committee on bioethics at Glaxo.

He writes a regular column on bioethics for MSNBC.com. He is a frequent guest and commentator on various media outlets.

Caplan is the recipient of many awards and honors including the McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association and the Franklin Award from the City of Philadelphia. He was a person of the Year 2001 from USA Today, one of the fifty most influential people in American health care by Modern Health Care magazine, one of the ten most influential people in America in biotechnology by the National Journal and one of the ten most influential people in the ethics of biotechnology by the editors of Nature Biotechnology. He holds seven honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, the NY Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Articles by Arthur Caplan

• "Creating a medical, legal and ethical framework for complex living kidney donors," Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 1: 2006: 1148-53
• "Gene therapy and erectile dysfunction," Human Gene Therapy, 18, 2006, 1177.
• “Taking ethics seriously in cosmetic dermatology”, Archives of Dermatology, 142, 12, 2006: 1641-2
• “Lessons across the pond: Assisted reproductive technology in the UK and the USA,” American Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics, 31, 2005: 419-446.
• “The appropriate use of artificial nutrition and hydration: fundamental principles and recommendations for the future.” New England Journal of Medicine, 2005: 2607-2612 (with D. Cassarett and J. Kapo).
• “Misusing the Nazi Analogy, Science, 309, 2005:535
• "Attack of the Anti-Cloners," Arthur Caplan, Free Inquiry, Winter 2002/2003, p. 30.
• "Mapping Morality: The Rights and Wrongs of Genomics," in M. Yudell and R. DeSalle, eds., The Genomics Revolution, Joseph Henry Press, 2002: 189-94.
• "NAS Cloning Hearing," Science, 294 (2001): 1651
• "Cloning Human Embryos," Western Journal of Medicine, 176 (2002): 78-79.
• "Protecting Subjects' Interests in Genetics Research," American Journal of Human Genetics, 70 (2002):965-71 (with J.E Merz, D. Magnus, M.K. Cho).
• "What Is Morally Wrong with Eugenics?" in PR. Sloan, ed., Controlling Our Destinies, Notre Dame University Press, 2000: 209-23.

Also see "Breaking Bioethics" on the health page of MSNBC.com, featuring columns by Caplan http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3035344/

Books

Caplan is the editor or author of 24 books including:

• Smart Mice, Not-So-Smart People: An Interesting and Amusing Guide to Bioethics, (2006)
• The Case of Terri Schiavo: Ethics at the end of life (2006)[1]
• Health, Disease, and Illness: Concepts in Medicine (2004) ISBN 1-58901-014-0
• Who Owns Life? (2002) ISBN 1-57392-986-7
• Finding Common Ground: Ethics and Assisted Suicide (2001)
• Ethics And Organ Transplants, (1999)
• Am I My Brother's Keeper? (1998)
• Due Consideration: Controversy in an Age of Medical Miracles, (1997)
• Prescribing Our Future: Ethical Challenges in Genetic Counseling, Aldine Press, (1993)
• If I Were A Rich Man Could I Buy A Pancreas And Other Essays On Medical Ethics, (1992)
• When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics And The Holocaust (1992).