Arthur L. Caplan (born 1950) is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of ...
and the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics.
Caplan has made many contributions to public policy including: helping to found the
National Marrow Donor Program
The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1986 and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that operates the Be The Match Registry of volunteer hematopoietic cell donors and umbilical cord blood units in the Unite ...
;
creating the policy of required request in cadaver organ donation adopted throughout the United States; helping to create the system for distributing organs in the U.S.; and advising on the content of the
National Organ Transplant Act of 1984
The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 is an Act of the United States Congress which established the framework for the U.S. organ transplant system. The act clarified the property rights of human organs from deceased individuals and cr ...
, rules governing living organ donation, and legislation and regulation in many other areas of health care including blood safety and compassionate use.
During the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, he repeatedly stepped into controversy by universally criticizing those who were not fully vaccinated. Referring to them in a
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
appearance, he asserted, "I'll condemn them. I'll shame them. I'm blame them ... We can penalize them more, say you will have to pay more on your hospital bill. You can't get life insurance, disability insurance at affordable rates if you aren't vaccinated."
Early life and education
Born in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1950
to Sidney D. and Natalie Caplan, Arthur Caplan grew up in
Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popu ...
.
He has described his family as "
Workmen's Circle
The Workers Circle or Der Arbeter Ring ( yi, דער אַרבעטער־רינג), formerly The Workmen's Circle, is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that promotes social and economic justice, Jewish community and education, including Yiddi ...
, Zionist, and secular." He credits his background of Judaism with stimulating his interest in methods of inquiry and argument.
At age six, Caplan was diagnosed with
polio
Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...
. He was successfully treated at
Children's Hospital in Boston and went on to play sports at
Framingham North High School
Framingham High School, or FHS, is an urban/suburban public high school in the city of Framingham, Massachusetts, United States, located approximately west of Boston. Founded in 1792, as Framingham Academy, the high school is the result of th ...
.
Caplan has stated that this life-threatening illness was a formative experience that influenced his later commitment to philosophy and
bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
.
Caplan did his undergraduate work at
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, pro ...
, where he majored in philosophy.
There he met his future wife Jane. Their son, Zachary, was born in 1984.
Caplan's second wife, Meg O’Shea Caplan, is the medical center director of the Bronx VA Medical Center.
Caplan did his graduate work at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, receiving an M.A. in 1973, an M.Phil. in 1975, and a Ph.D. in the history and
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
in 1979.
His dissertation, ''Philosophical Issues Concerning the Synthetic Theory of Evolution'', was co-supervised by
Ernest Nagel
Ernest Nagel (November 16, 1901 – September 20, 1985) was an American philosopher of science. Suppes, Patrick (1999)Biographical memoir of Ernest Nagel In '' American National Biograph''y (Vol. 16, pp. 216-218). New York: Oxford University Pr ...
and
Sidney Morgenbesser
Sidney Morgenbesser (September 22, 1921 – August 1, 2004) was a Jewish American philosopher and professor at Columbia University. He wrote little but is remembered by many for his philosophical witticisms.
Life and career
Sidney Morgenbesser ...
. Caplan worked with Nagel as a teaching assistant and was the final graduate student of Nagel's career. During his time at Columbia, Caplan met psychoanalyst and Dean of Education Bernard Schoenberg. Schoenberg allowed him to participate as both an observer and a medical student in clinical rotations in the university's medical college, first experiencing "ethics in action".
Career
In 1977, Caplan met
Daniel Callahan
Daniel John Callahan (July 19, 1930 – July 16, 2019) was an American philosopher who played a leading role in developing the field of biomedical ethics as co-founder of The Hastings Center, the world's first bioethics research institute. He ser ...
, a philosopher who co-founded
The Hastings Center
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...
(now in
Garrison, New York
Garrison is a hamlet in Putnam County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Philipstown, on the east side of the Hudson River, across from the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Garrison Metro-North Railroad ...
) with psychiatrist
Willard Gaylin
Willard Marvin Gaylin (February 23, 1925 – December 30, 2022) was an American bioethicist and physician who served as clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was also the co-founder, along with Daniel ...
. In 1977, Caplan joined The Hastings Center, first as a junior research assistant and then as a post-doctoral fellow. He spent the next 10 years at the center, serving as the associate director from 1985 to 1987. During this time, Caplan published many papers on genetics (including the ethics of genetic testing and screening), evolution, sociobiology, and the teaching of ethics. He also became involved in the ethics of human and animal experimentation and new medical technologies, applying philosophy in public discourse and speaking on public policy issues.
In 1987, Caplan moved to the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
, where he became a professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Surgery and the first director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics. In 1989, he organized the Center for Bioethics Conference on Medical Ethics and the Holocaust, the first conference convened to discuss bioethics and the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. During his time at Minnesota he was active on issues relating to organ transplantation and genetics and worked with
Rosalie A. Kane on dilemmas of "everyday ethics" involving treatment of the elderly. He also wrote about bioethics in relation to the Holocaust. In 1992, he joined the Medical Advisory Council of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
.
Caplan secured the first apology for the
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Cente ...
, from Lewis Sullivan, M.D., then secretary of HHS, in 1991.
He worked with William Seidelman, M.D., and others to secure in 2012 an apology from the German Medical Association for the role of German physicians in Nazi prison experiments during the Holocaust.
In May 1994, Caplan went to the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. He founded the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Medical Ethics and had professorial appointments in a variety of departments including Medicine and Philosophy.
In the mid-1990s, he and colleagues conducted the first empirical studies on organ donor eligibility and donation rates. In 2009, the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics was established at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, named for Caplan's father. Arthur Caplan became the first holder of the professorship.
While at the University of Pennsylvania, he became the first bioethicist to be sued for his professional role, after his involvement in a gene therapy trial that resulted in the death of research subject
Jesse Gelsinger
Jesse Gelsinger (June 18, 1981 – September 17, 1999) was the first person publicly identified as having died in a clinical trial for gene therapy. Gelsinger suffered from ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, an X-linked genetic disease of the ...
.
The family’s suit was settled with the University for an undisclosed amount of money, in exchange for, among other things, dropping Caplan from the suit.
The federal government’s suit on the same facts was settled for $500,000.
In 2009, Caplan helped develop the first flu vaccine mandate at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and, later, New York state's policy to require health care workers to "vaccinate or mask". Also in 2009, he called for tightening restrictions on fertility clinics and IVF and has written extensively in favor of embryonic stem cell research.
In 2012, Caplan came to
New York University's School of Medicine as the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics and the founding director of the Division of Bioethics.
In May 2015, Caplan launched, with pharmaceutical company
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...
, a pilot project for the equitable distribution of experimental drugs outside ongoing clinical trials. He created the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee (CompAC), a panel of bioethicists, physicians, and patient advocates, to respond to appeals from terminally ill patients for a cancer drug in development by J&J. It is believed to be the first of its kind in the pharmaceuticals industry.
Recent activity has included spearheading a movement to relax restrictions on blood donations by gay men and urging postponement of the Rio Summer Olympics because of the Zika virus threat. In early May 2020, the United States Conference of Mayors announced the Mayors Advisory Panel on Sports, Recreation & Health, with Caplan as a co-chair, to "advise mayors and sports and recreation officials on safe policies and practices as cities reopen from the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
", and in November 2020 he joined the NCAA COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group. MarketWatch featured Caplan in an article on the life of a bioethicist during the COVID-19 pandemic on August 4, 2020.
Much of his time from 2020 to present has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. He has spoken and written extensively on vaccine-related topics, including the ethics of placebo-controlled trials during the pandemic, what is owed to vaccine trial participants after a vaccine has been authorized,
COVID-19 vaccination
A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19).
Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an es ...
of transplant candidates, and more specialized topics such understanding attitudes toward the disease and vaccines among a Haredi-Orthodox Jewish community. He was one of the more vocal proponents of controversial challenge studies for
SARS-CoV2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a p ...
vaccines.
Caplan has been criticized by some classical philosophers for his "hands-on philosophy",
and by some colleagues for his enthusiastic engagement with the media.
In response, he said: "To me, the whole point of doing ethics is to change people, to change behavior. Why else do it?"
In 2022, Caplan advocated that pharmaceutical companies should stop doing business in Russia, an action that was criticized as advocating for a war crime.
Academic work
Caplan is the author and editor of more than 35 books and more than 860 papers in peer-reviewed journals of
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
,
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
, and health policy.
He is a regular contributor to
WebMD
WebMD is an American corporation known primarily as an online publisher of news and information pertaining to human health and well-being. The site includes information pertaining to drugs. It is one of the top healthcare websites.
It was foun ...
's
Medscape
Medscape is a website providing access to medical information for clinicians; the organization also provides continuing education for physicians and health professionals. It references medical journal articles, Continuing Medical Education (CM ...
and a regular commentator on
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
,
WOR Radio,
WGBH (FM)
WGBH (89.7 MHz; branded as GBH without the " W" since August 31, 2020) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts. WGBH is a member station of National Public Radio (NPR) and affiliate of Public Radio Exchange (PRX), which me ...
's "Boston Public Radio" and
WMNF
WMNF is a non-commercial, community radio station operating in the city of Tampa in the U.S. state of Florida that broadcasts at the FM frequency of 88.5 MHz and streaming live. The station has been on the air since September 14, 1979, and ha ...
Tampa
Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...
's "Everyday Ethics" podcast. He is a frequent guest and commentator on various other media outlets, discussing public health issues like
obesity
Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's we ...
,
Ebola virus disease
Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after becom ...
,
Zika virus
''Zika virus'' (ZIKV; pronounced or ) is a member of the virus family ''Flaviviridae''. It is spread by daytime-active ''Aedes'' mosquitoes, such as '' A. aegypti'' and '' A. albopictus''. Its name comes from the Ziika Forest of Uganda, whe ...
,
vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
,
and
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
He has been co-director of the Joint Council of Europe/United Nations Study on Trafficking in Organs and Body Parts.
He was the co-director of a United Nations/Council of Europe Study on organ trafficking. He has called for a new international convention on criminal organ trafficking.
He has spoken out on international issues such as
organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China
Forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China has raised increasing concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas ...
.
He instituted a boycott by leading medical journals of papers about transplantation coming from China.
Internationally, he was the chair of the Advisory Committee to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
on
Human Cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy (or clone) of a human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning, which is the reproduction of human cells and tissue. It does not refer to the natural concepti ...
,
and served on the special advisory committee to the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
on genetics and gene therapy.
Caplan has served on a number of national committees, including as chair of the National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group
and chair of the Advisory Committee to the Department of Health and Human Services on Blood Safety and Availability.
He was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses
and the special advisory panel to the
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the prima ...
on human experimentation on vulnerable subjects.
He is an adviser to
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
on synthetic biology
and has addressed the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
He has also served on the ethics committee of the
American Society of Gene Therapy.
Caplan has consulted with many corporations, not-for-profit organizations, and consumer organizations. He is on the board of trustees of the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies."Joseph R. ...
.
He also sat on the board of the
National Center for Policy Research on Women & Families,
the
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
,
the Iron Disorders Foundation,
and the
National Disease Research Interchange
The National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI), based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1980. NDRI is funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, public and private foundations and org ...
.
Awards and honors
Caplan has been elected as a fellow of
The Hastings Center
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...
(1990),
the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
(1994),
the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is the oldest private medical society in the United States. Founded in 1787 by 24 Philadelphia physicians "to advance the Science of Medicine, and thereby lessen human misery, by investigating the disease ...
(1994),
the
New York Academy of Medicine
The New York Academy of Medicine (the Academy) is a health policy and advocacy organization founded in 1847 by a group of leading New York metropolitan area physicians as a voice for the medical profession in medical practice and public health ...
(1997),
and an honorary fellow of the American College of Legal Medicine (2008).
Caplan was named a person of the Year in 2001 by ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
''.
In December 2008, ''
Discover
Discover may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album
* ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine
Businesses and brands
* DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation''
* D ...
'' magazine named him one of the 10 most influential people in science, for ”translating philosophical debates into understandable ideas” and “democratizing bioethics.”
He is one of the 10 most influential people in America in biotechnology, according to the ''
National Journal
''National Journal'' is an advisory services company based in Washington, D.C., offering services in government affairs, advocacy communications, stakeholder mapping, and policy brands research for government and business leaders. It publishes da ...
''; one of the 10 most influential people in the ethics of biotechnology, according to ''
Nature Biotechnology
''Nature Biotechnology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio. The chief editor heads an in-house team of editors. The focus of the journal is biotechnology including research results and the commercial busi ...
''; one of the 50 most influential people in American health care, according to ''Modern Health Care'' magazine; and one of the 100 most influential people in biotechnology, according to ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'' magazine.
Caplan holds seven honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools.
He received the McGovern Medal of the
American Medical Writers Association
The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) is a professional association for medical communicators, with more than 4,000 members in the United States, Canada, and 30 other countries. AMWA is governed by a board of directors composed of the ele ...
in 1999,
the John P. McGovern Award Lectureship from the
Medical Library Association
The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide.
History
Founded on May 2, 1898, by four librarians, including Marcia ...
in 2007,
and the Patricia Price Browne Prize in Biomedical Ethics in 2011.
In 2014, he was given the public service award of the National Science Board/
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
.
In May 2016, he received the Rare Impact Award from the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD).
The American Society for Bioethics & Humanities (ASBH) awarded Caplan its 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2018 the Food and Drug Law Institute honored him with a Distinguished Service and Leadership Award. In December 2019, CompAC (the Compassionate Use Advisory Committees), which Caplan founded and chairs, received the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA's Innovation Award.
Bibliography
* Caplan, Arthur L.; Redman, Barbara K (2018).
Getting to Good: Research Integrity in Biomedical Sciences'. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caplan, Arthur
Bioethicists
Living people
Brandeis University alumni
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
University of Minnesota faculty
University of Pittsburgh faculty
University of Pennsylvania faculty
New York University Grossman School of Medicine faculty
People from Boston
Hastings Center Fellows
1950 births
Framingham High School alumni