To the Editor:

Re “Take a Rat to Dinner,” by Steven A. Shaw (Op-Ed, March 16):

If Mr. Shaw is correct that rats are not the greatest threat to food safety in restaurants, this open secret in no way contradicts the fact that rats are as unwelcome as any other threat. Rats serve as a dramatic visual reminder—spread through services like YouTube—in a way that unwashed hands and flies cannot.

This positive convergence of an old bugaboo and a new technology should not be given short shrift in light of the attention it can draw to the larger problem.

Robert Schonfeld
New York, March 16, 2007

Note from KBJ: Shaw’s op-ed column gives new meaning to the Black Sabbath song “Rat Salad.”