Center for Bioethics / News Archive

News Archive

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." Read more...

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. Read more...

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. Read more...

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." Read more...

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?" Click here to listen.

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. Read more...

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. Read more...

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. Read more...

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." Read more...

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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