SCOTLAND'S Chief Medical Officer and The Herald are to be congratulated on their efforts to rectify the problem of vitamin D deficiency in Scotland caused by lack of sunlight ("Free vitamin D call amid fear for children's health", The Herald, February 4).

The plethora of health problems caused by this deficiency is well known, but the problem has been exacerbated in recent years by our increasingly "indoors" lifestyle and the almost obsessive use of sun block creams.

Scots should be advised to spend as much time as possible outdoors and in the sunshine. Other than in exceptional situations (which are rare in Scotland) sun creams should be put aside. If successive cohorts of student health care professionals had been less hasty to reject their biochemistry classes as "irrelevant", the advice given by our health care professionals would have been rather different.

Dr Josie A Beeley,

(Retired senior lecturer in Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow),

42 Montrose Drive, Bearsden.

A SIGNIFICANT factor in reducing the time spent outdoors is the motor vehicle. People leave the home directly into the car, alighting as close to their destination as possible. People are discouraged from walking, and children from playing outdoors because of traffic.

Research indicates that the car contributes to many ailments that afflict young and old. For the sake of the wellbeing of its people the Scottish Government must reverse its policy of road building and invest in healthy and sustainable public transport, giving priority to walking and cycling in the urban realm. This is what all enlightened European governments are encouraging.

You make the point in your editorial that multiple sclerosis sufferers may one day sue the authorities for their failure to take action knowing the dangers of vitamin D deficiency (Shining a light on dangers of vitamin D deficiency,", The Herald, February 4) .

Perhaps the threat of legal action against the Scottish Government and Aberdeen City Council may avert their decision to build a major route into Aberdeen from the north, which will spread pollution from the existing two routes, which currently violate European legal limits, into a residential area currently free of through traffic.

Frank Paterson,

Don Terrace, Aberdeen.