US and International Standards for Resuscitators

To the Editor. —  Representatives of the US Department of Defense have informed us that there are incompatibilities in the requirements for manually triggered oxygen-powered resuscitators in the Standards and Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care,^1(p2905) American Society for Testing and Materials US Standard F 920,² and the recently published International Standard 8382.³ At a meeting of American Society for Testing and Materials Committee F-29.03.03 held in Boston, Mass, on January 26, 1989, and attended by representatives of the Department of Defense and of the Emergency Cardiac Care Committee of the American Heart Association, it was unanimously decided that until Standard F 920 can be brought into accord with International Standard 8382³ and the American Heart Association's Standards and Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care,¹ the International Standard 8382 should be used as the specific reference for manually triggered gas-powered resuscitators. All