Sir, while we welcome the demise of the BDA's accreditation system — which inevitably led to a perception of our association being compromised, we were keen to highlight our concerns which have followed from the 'Ribena Toothkind' debate.

We are more than a little disappointed to witness the latest efforts made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to market Ribena to consumers. It would seem that while 'Ribena Toothkind' is no more, our interpretation this time would seem to be that GSK's latest effort is being blatantly targeted specifically at babies and toddlers. The drink is branded as 'really light' and carries the banner 'friendly to teeth', although there is not a shred of evidence to support this latter claim. Unfortunately, it gets worse — the bottle is shaped tantalisingly like a child's feeding bottle! The manufacturers clearly aim to redeem themselves by claiming on the reverse of the bottle (in much smaller writing): 'Neither this drink nor cap is suitable for babies and toddlers under 36 months'.

Clearly, there are important public health issues at stake here. The BDA ought to be leading this debate — around clear/consistent food labelling and marketing of food/drink to children.