Researchers uncover the disgusting truth about NYC rats

Rats, rodents, city kitties — call them what you will — a scurrying furball is as common a sighting in New York City as taxi cabs and lost tourists.

But just how disgusting are rats, really?

For the first time, a team of researchers tested rats in Manhattan and cataloged the viruses and bacteria they carry. The verdict is not pretty — or clean.

Columbia University researchers spent a year collecting 133 rats. They found that the specimens were carrying food-borne illnesses like salmonella, as well as fever-inducing illnesses.

Most alarmingly (and well distilled by TheNew York Times), "novel" pathogens and bacteria were discovered — ones that had never been seen before in New York, or to science.

The findings were published in the journal mBio Tuesday with the title "Detection of Zoonotic Pathogens and the Characterization of Novel Viruses Carried by Commensal Rattus norvegicus in New York City." An excerpt of the abstract shows the scale of what the rats carried:

"We also identified a wide range of known and novel viruses from groups that contain important human pathogens, including sapoviruses, cardioviruses, kobuviruses, parechoviruses, rotaviruses, and hepaciviruses. The two novel hepaciviruses discovered in this study replicate in the liver of Norway rats and may have utility in establishing a small animal model of human hepatitis C virus infection."

The published research notes that much research has been given to studying animals that carry infectious diseases, but less so for "commensal animals like rats, despite their abundance in urban centers and close proximity to urban populations."

(And in other rat news, New York City rates No. 4 on pest control company Orkin's "rattiest city" list, topped by Chicago at No. 1, Los Angeles at No. 2 and Washington, D.C.-Hagerstown, Md., at No. 3. Orkin compiled the list based on cities where the company performed the most rodent treatments.)

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