• toughened glass
• bar workers

Editor,—The first editorial in the March issue in which our randomised controlled trial of toughened glassware was published includes the statement that “. . . the results show that `toughened' glassware produces more injuries. The authors conclude that impact resistance standards should favour annealed glass”.¹ In fact, the results we reported were precisely the opposite. We found that tougher glasses, namely those that had higher resistance to impact, produced fewer injuries. As we stated in the “implications for prevention”:

• Increasing the impact resistance of bar glassware reduces the risk of injury.

• The toughening process can increase impact resistance substantially, without altering the dimensions/thickness of glassware, but it can also reduce glass impact resistance.

• Quality control standards are urgently needed to ensure that toughened glass products are what they claim to be.

Nothing that we found in our randomised controlled trial leads us to change our view, based on previously published evidence, that high impact resistant toughened (tempered) glassware is the way forward for reducing the risk of both intentional and accidental injuries in bars.