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

He has served on a number of national and international committees including as the Chair National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations on Human Cloning, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Department of Health and Human Services on Blood Safety and Availability, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, the special advisory committee to the International Olympic Committee on genetics and gene therapy, the ethics committee of the American Society of Gene Therapy, and the special advisory panel to the National Institute of Mental Health on human experimentation on vulnerable subjects. He has consulted with many corporations, not-for-profit organizations and consumer organizations. He is a member of the board of directors of The Keystone Center, the National Center for Policy Research on Women and Families, Octagon, The Franklin Institute, Iron Disorders Foundation and the National Disease Research Interchange. He chaired the advisory committee on bioethics at Glaxo from 2005-8. He is on the food advisory panel for Edelman public relations and co-director of a United Nations/Council of Europe Study on organ trafficking.

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

He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, the New York Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Caplan is the recipient of many awards and honors including the McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association and the Franklin Award from the City of Philadelphia. He was a person of the Year 2001 from USA Today, one of the fifty most influential people in American health care by Modern Health Care magazine, one of the ten most influential people in America in biotechnology by the National Journal and one of the ten most influential people in the ethics of biotechnology by the editors of Nature Biotechnology. He holds seven honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools. Discover magazine in December, 2008 named him one of the ten most influential people in science.

According to the Web of Science, Caplan's works have been cited about 1500 times, leading to an h-index of 20.

Articles

• "Creating a medical, legal and ethical framework for complex living kidney donors", Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 1: 2006: 1148-53
• "Gene therapy and erectile dysfunction", Human Gene Therapy, 18, 2006, 1177.
• "Taking ethics seriously in cosmetic dermatology", Archives of Dermatology, 142, 12, 2006: 1641-2
• "Lessons across the pond: Assisted reproductive technology in the UK and the USA", American Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics, 31, 2005: 419-446.
• "The appropriate use of artificial nutrition and hydration: fundamental principles and recommendations for the future", New England Journal of Medicine, 2005: 2607-2612 (with D. Cassarett and J. Kapo).
• "Misusing the Nazi Analogy", Science, 309, 2005:535
• "Attack of the Anti-Cloners", Arthur Caplan, Free Inquiry, Winter 2002/2003, p. 30.
• "Mapping Morality: The Rights and Wrongs of Genomics", in M. Yudell and R. DeSalle, eds., The Genomics Revolution, Joseph Henry Press, 2002: 189-94.
• "NAS Cloning Hearing", Science, 294 (2001): 1651
• "Cloning Human Embryos", Western Journal of Medicine, 176 (2002): 78-79.
• "Protecting Subjects' Interests in Genetics Research", American Journal of Human Genetics, 70 (2002):965-71 (with J.E Merz, D. Magnus, M.K. Cho).
• "What Is Morally Wrong with Eugenics?" in PR. Sloan, ed., Controlling Our Destinies, Notre Dame University Press, 2000: 209-23.
• "Breaking Bioethics" on the health page of MSNBC.com, featuring columns by Caplan http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3035344/
• "Lessons from the failure of human papillomavirus vaccine state requirements", Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 82, December, 2007: 760-3, (with JL Schwartz, RR Faden and J Sugarman).
• "Leveraging Genetic Resources or Moral Blackmail?... Indonesia and Avian Flu Virus Sample Sharing", American Journal of Bioethics, 7,11, 2007: 1-2 (with David R Curry).
• "The ethics of evil: The challenge and the lessons of Nazi medical experiments", in W. LaFleur, ed., Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research, Indiana University Press, 2007: 50-64.
• "Duty and ‘euthanasia’: the nurses of Meseritz-Obrawalde", Nursing Ethics, 14,6, 2007: 781-94, (with Susan Benedict and TL Page).
• "Caring for organs or for patients? Ethical concerns about the uniform anatomical gift act", Annals of Internal Medicine, 147, 2007: 876-79 (with M. DeVita).
• "Beyond Schiavo", Journal of Clinical Ethics, 18, 4, 2007: 1-6 (with Edward Bergman).
• "A shot in the rear: Why are we really against steroids?" Science Progress. 1, 2008: 1-3.
• "Simon Caplan’s Day" in M. Wallace, ed., 50 Years From Today, Thomas Nelson, 2008: 24-26.

Books

Caplan is the editor or author of 24 books including:

• "The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics" (Springer, 2009)
• Smart Mice, Not-So-Smart People: An Interesting and Amusing Guide to Bioethics, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006)ISBN 0742541711
• The Case of Terri Schiavo: Ethics at the end of life (2006)[1]
• Health, Disease, and Illness: Concepts in Medicine (2004) ISBN 1-58901-014-0
• Who Owns Life? (2002) ISBN 1-57392-986-7
• Finding Common Ground: Ethics and Assisted Suicide (2001)
• Ethics And Organ Transplants, (1999)
• Am I My Brother's Keeper? (1998)
• Due Consideration: Controversy in an Age of Medical Miracles, (1997)
• Prescribing Our Future: Ethical Challenges in Genetic Counseling, Aldine Press, (1993)
• If I Were A Rich Man Could I Buy A Pancreas And Other Essays On Medical Ethics, (1992)
• When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics And The Holocaust (1992).