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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6412230" data-attributes="member: 177">We don't have to resort to vague assertions.  The following took me less than 5 minutes to determine:  <a href="http://www2.massgeneral.org/id/hms/handouts20032004/martin4_04.pdf" target="_blank">This paper (from Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston)</a> suggests that 1% or more of animal bite injuries come from rats.  With 3.7 million animal bite injuries per year, that makes for 37,000 or more rat bites each year.The paper says:"The incidence of rat-bite fever after a rodent bite is unknown but the disease has been noted to occur in up to 10% of patients with rodent bites presenting for medical care (2). Rat-bite fever is a clinical syndrome caused by one of two different organisms, Streptobacillus moniliformis and Spirillium minor, that are part of the normal rodent flora. Pasteurella spp., Leptospira interrogans, and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus have also been reported after rat bites (17). "So, while there's some wiggle room, it looks like we have something like 3700 cases a year we could attribute to bites.</blockquote>