Thanks for the correction and we are in agreement, I am against genocide but for killing rats as well. You bring up a good point tho considering the history with plagues. So if the answer for DOH is going after rats, I'm not what get can do other than encourage you not to leave food out.  So rather than going out to kill rats the DOH would have people do things to decrease the rats, similar to their "fight the bite" campaign to decrease mosquitos. But considering forrests being a place for rats to dwell as well as mosquitos I don't think we can really make a dent in the pest population, only discourage them from multiplying in our own area maybe.