I also understand that some short-sighted individuals have charged that the new standards are a Department of Defense contrivance to satisfy their own needs without regard to the rest of the blood banking and transfusion service industry. My experience with the military establishment tells me that there is nothing further from the truth. The US military is the most crisis prepared organization on the planet. It is through the military's experience with the short-comings of the labeling of international blood supplies during the Gulf War that we can all benefit. The military has also conducted and funded important leading edge blood and blood product research that benefits the entire world civilian population.
Some people just fail to see the big picture.
If the ISBT 128 Specification is discarded now, this will place a large development cost burden on these companies. This additional cost will be necessarily passed on to blood banks as increased update and support costs for existing software without providing any new benefits to the blood bank industry. It seems that any excuse that can be dreamed up to discourage adoption of the ISBT 128 Specification is being leveled at this point. I have had my own technical reasons to take issue with the current Specification , but there has been no reason, of enough importance, to abandon over five years of difficult and innovative work. Certainly, refinements to the Specification will have to be made as time goes on.