Arthur Caplan
Chair, Department of Medical Ethics, University of Pennsylvania
Posts by Arthur Caplan
- Bioethics Forum Essay
Ashamed to Be Vaccinated? The Ethics of Health Care Employees Forgoing Unfair Priority
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssaySuppose you are young, healthy, employed in a health care system and that your line of work does not require leaving the low-risk comfort of your home. Now suppose that your employer offers you a vaccine. You know there are others in your community who are at greater risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19 than you. Should you accept the dose?Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Coronavirus Mutation Panic
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe headlines are terrifying: A highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus is circulating in England. As the story spread, politicians and media outlets reported a devastating statistic: the new strain is 70% more transmissible than other strains of the virus. This has led to new lockdowns; many border closures; flight cancellations; and people fleeing the U.K. by train, boat, and plane. But is any of this necessary? Is the world suffering from mutation panic?Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Fair Compensation for Rare Vaccine Harms
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Accepting the Challenge: Covid Vaccine Challenge Trials Can Be Ethically Justified
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe Covid-19 pandemic is unlikely to end until there is a safe, effective, and widely distributed vaccine. How soon can researchers achieve this goal? The answer largely depends on which strategies researchers are willing to adopt. One potential strategy is to conduct human challenge studies, in which researchers give an experimental vaccine to healthy volunteers and then test—or “challenge”—the vaccine by purposely exposing volunteers to the virus. Although a growing number of voices are calling on researchers to employ this strategy, the proposal is generating a heated debate about the ethics of such research.Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
The Price of Going Back to Work Too Soon
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayPresident Donald Trump had, until very recently, spent as much time in his public appearances proclaiming victory over the Covid-19 pandemic rippling across the nation as he had offering directives that would diminish it. Again and again, he promised that it would soon be over, especially as the wea...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
False Hope About Coronavirus Treatments
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What Are the Rules for Ethical Medication of Migrant Kids?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayReports that migrant children held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement are being drugged require an immediate and unambiguous response by the Trump administration. According to court filings, the drugs that are alleged to be among those given to children without their parents’ consent include cl...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
A New Mind-Body Problem
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayNot since Rene Descartes gazed from his garret window in early 17th-century Paris and wondered whether those were men or hats and coats covering “automatic machines” he saw roaming the streets has the issue of personal identity and your cranium been of such import. Descartes feared a world that h...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
After the Election Bioethics Faces a Rocky Road
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayAcademic bioethics has never been popular with Republicans. Libertarians dislike academic bioethics because it seems too elitist and anti-free market. Religious thinkers worry it is technocratic, soulless and crassly utilitarian. Now with Trumpism add a populist disdain for expertise, experts and t...Read the Post - From Bioethics Briefings
Organ Transplantation
Read the PostFrom Bioethics BriefingsFraming the Issue Every day about 22 people in the United States die waiting for organ transplants. The deaths are especially tragic since many might be prevented if more organs were available. Every day very hard choices have to be made about who will live and who will die. With more than 100,000 pe...Read the Post
