AJOB Bloggers Elsewhere
Contributors to blog.bioethics.net frequently appear in the popular media and other academic journals.
"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." from Discovery Tech
"We're on the verge of profound changes in our ability to manipulate the brain."
+ Paul Root Wolpe on Reason Online in "The Battle for Your Brain"
Proponents say cryonics is the one chance people have to live again, but Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said those considering being frozen should think about what it would be like to come back. For example, a person revived in the future wouldn't have any relationships or ties to that time. "Who we are isn't just defined by what's in our heads; it's also by our relationships," Caplan said. Another question, he said, is whether a person would maintain memories and personality should he or she be reanimated.
+ Arthur Caplan on AZCentral.com in "With Many Medical Advances, Many Put Faith in Freezing"
While many doctors think it overkill to monitor things as seemingly petty as gifts of coffee mugs and pens from the drug reps, strong evidence suggests that even small gifts exert a powerful psychological effect on doctors' behavior. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has argued that even the small gifts that companies routinely doll out, such as free lunches, coffee mugs, flash drives, binders, book bags, and free samples, affect doctors' prescribing behavior. A 2003 study Caplan coauthored and published in the American Journal of Bioethics found "indisputable [evidence] that small gifts had a tremendous power in influencing favorable attitudes toward products."
+ Arthur Caplan on InjuryBoard.com in "Finally! Drug Payoffs to be Disclosed by Cleveland Clinic"
"The uptick gives lie to the system that invokes 'donors' when it's really a system of 'sellers."
+ Arthur Caplan on MSNBC in "Short on Cash, Some Put a Price on Themselves"
"It's true that you like a nice ambiance when you go to the doctor" said Caplan. "These surveys are evaluating the furniture in the waiting room and bedside manner, not who's competent."
+ Arthur Caplan in The Telegraph on "Doctors Question Validity of Online Rating Systems"
"No surgeon can say that giving breast implants to a 17-, 18-year-old for beauty reasons is ethical," Caplan said. "It's terrible that these pageants are turning into plastic-surgery competitions and are no longer about real beauty."
+ Arthur Caplan in The Seattle Times on "Sculpting Venezuelan Beauty Queens"
Will cognitive and memory enhancers start a pharmaceutical arms race, with businesses and countries trying to outdo each other with stronger and longer lasting brain pills? And if some parents are already pushing Ritalin on little Johnny, what will happen when memory pills hit the market?
+ Paul Root Wolpe in The Washington Times: "Preparing for a Neuroscience Revolution"
“Doctors are thinking about bioethics more than they have in the past,” McGee said. “But the bottom line is it’s not enough. They need training. We need more people to teach doctors. Training doctors is important. . . . The bottom line about bioethics is that we don’t think we have the answers. The reason we exist is because nobody else is asking the questions.”
+ Glenn McGee in the Daily Gazette: "Medical ethics taking center stage"
"It's one thing to say, "I don't want a pregnancy.' It's another to say, "I don't want to have a baby with Tay Sachs disease, which is going to kill him anyway,' versus, "I don't want a baby with Down,' versus, "I don't want a baby who's blind,' versus, "I don't want a baby that's gay.' Every one of those could, and eventually will, be a part of genetic testing. In that sense, this debate isn't about Down testing, it's about how to handle genetic information about the fetus."
+ Art Caplan in the Intelligencer (Philadelphia): "The risks of testing"
“With a budget deficit and the war in Iraq, the odds of a major bump in federal stem-cell funding are slim no matter who is elected president,” said James Fossett, a bioethicist with the Rockefeller Institute of Government. “The economic opportunities presented by the research make it unlikely states will diminish their funding efforts.”
+ Jim Fossett on Stateline.org: "States vie for stem-cell scientists"
"If anything happens that involves the psychic suggesting the disease is one thing when it's really another, you couldn't get a jury together that wouldn't say that was malpractice," McGee said. But McGee doesn't begrudge anyone seeing a psychic on their own. "Part of the reason that psychics have such appeal is the same reason that alternative medicine has such appeal: It's that they listen," he said. "We live in a time when it is hard to get a doctor's appointment that lasts longer than 10 minutes. I'll bet you that this psychic spends an hour or more with patients."
+ Glenn McGee in Albany Times Union: "Psychic conveys healing words from elsewhere"
Glenn McGee, a bioethics expert at Albany Medical College enlisted as an expert witness by the attorneys for the widows, characterized the situation as a "systematic deception by clinicians in plain violation of medical and research ethics across 3,000 years of the development of such principals."
+ Glenn McGee in Albany Times Union: "Court papers detail dark chapter at VA"
"These companies are essentially taking advantage of people's ignorance and fears to make a buck."
"There is just no question in my mind that if we had an effective lie detector that the pressure to use it for security purposes, in courtrooms — even in sensitive employment settings — will be so strong that it will make its way into those settings," said Paul Root Wolpe from the Center for Bioethics at University of Pennsylvania. "The reason polygraphy hasn't done that yet is because it is just not good enough."
+ Paul Root Wolpe on Morning Edition: "Foolproof Test for Catching Liars Still Elusive"
“Is it really unnatural to seek a longer better life, as critics argue?” [Art Caplan] asked. He pointed out that there is really nothing natural about a 70 or 75-year average lifespan. In ancient times, lifespans were closer to 35. To those who say advance the Biblical idea of three-score and ten, he asks, “What about all those earlier in the Bible who lived 800 years?”
+ Art Caplan in Tech Journal South: "Should we really try to live forever?"
Wolpe said human display exhibits are not just voyeurism. “It challenges us as Mütter does to face up to both sides of our humanness … who we are as boundless souls revealed through the misshapen form in the Mütter and the shaped forms of ‘Body Worlds,’” he said.
+ Paul Root Wolpe in Charlottesville Daily Progress: "Is it OK to stare?"
"The greatest fear the public has when it comes to organ donation is their loved one will not receive aggressive treatment and will wind up having their death hastened because of the zeal people have to get organs," said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist. "You create a tremendous fear on the part of the public whenever any crossing of that line takes place."
+ Art Caplan in WaPo: "New Zeal in Organ Procurement Raises Fears"
"I don't think your employer should be in the business of rewarding or penalizing behavior that has nothing to do with the job," said Art Caplan, director of the university's Center for Bioethics. He said it's only a matter of time until discounts are replaced by surcharges for people in poor health.
+ Art Caplan in Arkansas Democrat Gazette: "Workers given incentives to be healthy"
A medical ethicist said state drug advisers should not take pharmaceutical companies' money because of the power the panel exercises over the poorest, most vulnerable patients. "This is a high-stakes committee," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "If you're going to have your hand on that tiller, you don't want to think that anybody is trying to push it."
+ Art Caplan in AP story: "Minn. law sheds light on drug companies"
"That kind of blatant paternalism might have been common in this country in the 1940s and 1950s, but it's inappropriate and something that won't be countenanced today," Magnus said. "You can't knowingly, intentionally lie to patients to get them to do what you want."
That talk about life is going to get uncomfortable as dreams of creation, from Frankenstein's monster on, get closer to reality, said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan. "This issue of 'what is life' has been at the core of biology for about 400 years," Caplan said. He said it leads to the more theological questions about whether life is special and whether we are special. Later this century, the definition of life will be at the heart of a political and societal debate as heated and divisive as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Caplan predicts.
It is not just guns. In all my life I never thought I would write those words after a massacre involving a mass murder with a gun. But a week's worth of intense media coverage of the heinous murders of students and faculty at Virginia Tech and analyses focusing on guns by innumerable experts has left me furious.
Creating animals that have human cells in their brains conjures up bizarre images, such as a human consciousness trapped in a mouse's body. Like you, this research gives me pause.
