Following the publication of a paper titled ‘Vitamin D replacement in pregnant women in rural North India: a pilot study’ by Sahu et al. (Eur J Clin Nutr 63, 1157–1159), a Letter to the Editor was received from DE Roth (doi:10.1038/ejcn.2010.1). The Letter and a Response to the letter by the authors, led by the corresponding author V Bhatia (doi:10.1038/ejcn.2010.2), were published online in February 2010 and follow this note in this print issue. A matter related to corrections that were made to the initial Letter to the Editor by Roth at the proof stage was raised by the respondent, which implied that the corrections made at this late stage to the letter altered the very essence of the debate that followed the original publication of the pilot study. We have hence decided to set the record straight by providing this note at the time of the print publication of this correspondence in our journal.

In the last paragraph of the original letter submitted to the journal, Roth states, ‘it remains unknown whether maternal vitamin D deficiency affects fetal well-being or development in humans, regardless of observed changes in 25(OH)D concentration’. The final letter by Roth corrected at the proof stage and subsequently published online, however, reads, ‘it remains unclear how maternal vitamin D supplementation affects fetal well-being or development in humans, regardless of observed changes in 25(OH)D concentration’. The fact that Bhatia and colleagues have quoted the sentence from the original letter from Roth in the last paragraph of their response demonstrates that they were responding to the statement in the original letter, and not that in the corrected proof.

In fairness, it is likely that the original letter by Roth was meant to refer to the issue of maternal vitamin D supplementation rather than to maternal vitamin D deficiency, for the consequences of the latter are well recognized, as pointed out by the respondents. However, making these important changes at the proof stage undermined the fair attempt at rebuttal by the respondents, which is the reasoning behind this note. We hope we have set the record straight.

We encourage letters and correspondence debating scientific issues arising out of publications in our journal. Although we also entertain correspondence raising other issues such as ethical considerations or conflicts of interest, we will not publish such correspondence, but will follow up, investigate and deal with them internally.