Caution Again: Need to Use Newer URL's for Carnegie Stages for Issues Concerning the Early Human Embryo

Dianne N. Irving
Copyright January 1, 2015
Reproduced with Permission

I. Introduction: a quick short note

Although the URLs for internet access to the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development were changed a couple of years ago, one can still see a number of current articles being written that continue to use the old URLs which no longer work, or cite articles in which the old URLs were used without providing corrections. This essentially precludes current readers from gaining important objective and accurate scientific knowledge about early human embryonic development for its own sake, but also precludes them from accessing the very scientific facts needed today to refute a whole host of issues involving the early human embryo. (And unfortunately, for those of us who have used the old URLs for almost 30 years in our work, those articles of ours at least need to be "updated" when referenced. This can easily be achieved by simply attaching or adding to them one or more of the URLs for more recent articles that do contain the new URLs -- see several such articles listed below). Please pass on the following far and wide.

As most already know, and as extensively detailed in the articles referenced below, the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development were instituted in 1942 by the National Museum of Health and Medicine's Developmental Anatomy Center -- not new! They are based on internationally acclaimed research going back to the 1880's and have been consistently updated since then to the present by the international nomenclature committee consisting of 20-23 Ph.D.'s in human embryology from around the world. (Can't get more objective than that!). They cover 23 Stages, from the beginning of the biological development of the early human embryo and throughout the embryonic period (i.e., through the end of 8 weeks of development): http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=collections.hdac.anatomy.index . [Click into "textbook" at bottom-left of screen for extensive details for each Stage.] Both sexual reproduction (fertilization, fusion of sperm and oocyte) and examples of a-sexual reproduction (no fertilization, but rather splitting or separation used, e.g., Stages 2-5) are fully documented.

Carnegie Stage 1 can be found at: http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage01.pdf . It is especially crucial for being able to explain why not all human beings begin to exist at "conception" (which false claim thus precludes the formation of a correct conscience and leads to legal loopholes), as well as being able to refute bioethical arguments "pro" destructive human embryo research. This includes human embryonic stem cell research; human genetic engineering such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, cloning; "3-parent embryos" by means of pronuclei transfer, spindle transfer, and mitochondrial transfer; and germ line gene transfer, etc. Note especially that Stage 1 consists of 3 developmental "phases" of the human embryo: Stage 1(a) [the primitive embryo], Stage 1(b) [the ootid], and Stage 1(c) [the zygote]. Most of the above unethical research uses the already existing living human embryo at phases (a) and (b) -- before the final formation of the zygote at phase (c).

That Stage, along with Carnegie Stages 2-5 , are crucial for refuting bioethical arguments "pro" the use of: abortifacients (such as Plan B, IUD's, etc.); early abortion while the human embryo is still in the woman's fallopian tube; embryo flushing; several "pluripotent stem cell" techniques; the use of bits and pieces of human embryos for stem cell culture media, "controls", etc.; embryo "donation" and several other practices and techniques used in IVF and ART research laboratories and "infertility" clinics, etc. See Carnegie Stages 2-5 at: http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage02.pdf http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage03.pdf http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage04.pdf http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage05.pdf

Similar current accurate resources for the Carnegie Stages can be bought as an iPhone ap p: https://itunes.apple.com/app/embryo/id422337604# .

The Carnegie Stages can also be found on DVD's purchasable from the Endowment for Human Development, at: http://www.ehd.org/shoppingcart/products/The-Biology-of-Prenatal-Development.html .

See also the online resource for the Carnegie Stages, "The Virtual Human Embryo" , at: http://www.ehd.org/virtual-human-embryo/intro.php?stage=1 .

II. Updated Articles:

The following more recent articles are examples of those that contain the updated and current URLs for the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryonic Development . Please file them some place where they are accessible, add one or more of these URLs to older articles you reference in your own work, and please pass them on:

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