We thank Drs Ding and Wang and the editors for raising these points and allowing us to clarify some of our data and views on the issues raised with regard to our recent article.1 We first address the first issue, which is the title of this letter—whether autophagy promotes or protects against pancreatitis. We are in agreement that autophagy per se does protect the exocrine pancreas, but this protection is violated and becomes a mechanism of cell injury when the autophagy traffic is perturbed at multiple points by the various triggers of pancreatitis.