In recognition of the need to participate fully in the global medical community, the AMA has been planning a method of implementing certain of the Système International (SI) units for more than a decade.
In December 1984, the House of Delegates (HOD) of the AMA adopted a report of the Council on Scientific Affairs1 entitled "SI Units for Clinical Laboratory Data." That report set a date of 1987 for a change in medical laboratory data reporting in the United States. By adopting that report, the HOD reaffirmed earlier policy on SI units that dated to 1978, when Council on Scientific Affairs Report E2—which stated, "For a year or more prior to the transition date, new units would be used parenthetically with the comparable old units in all AMA and other cooperating publications. For at least one year after the transition date, the old units will be used