Rats Strangled to Near-Death in Gruesome Australian Domestic Violence Experiment
PETA is calling for swift and immediate consequences after experimenters at an Australian university tied weights around female rats’ necks and strangled them in a gruesome and pointless attempt at studying domestic violence in humans.
The cruel test was first exposed by Australia’s Animal-Free Science Advocacy and took place at Melbourne’s Monash University.
PETA is pushing the journal that published the experiment to retract the paper. We’re also urging the university that conducted the test and asking the government agency that bankrolled it to prohibit all strangulation and traumatic brain injury experiments on animals, and also to fully transition away from animal testing by adopting our Research Modernization Now strategic roadmap. Additionally, we’re calling on officials to launch a cruelty-to-animals investigation, and pursue relevant disciplinary actions, regarding the experimenters’ apparent violation of the Australian standards for replacing the use of animals in tests with non-animal methods.
Strangled to Near-Death
Monash experimenters inflicted brain damage on female rats and then strangled them by attaching heavy weights to their tiny heads to simulate the traumatic injuries endured by human victims of domestic violence.
Despite the relentless pain and suffering caused by the test, experimenters did not provide painkillers to the rats before subjecting them to traumatic brain injuries. Some animals had to be resuscitated after losing consciousness during strangulation.
The pointless experiment cannot begin to accurately mimic the complexity of traumas that human victims experience after domestic violence. Advanced non-animal methods, such as imaging and computer models, could have been used to allow researchers to effectively study brain injuries without harming animals.
Rats and humans have vastly different brain structures, and while animals can experience stress, they don’t process and manifest trauma in comparable ways. By tormenting animals instead of pursuing human-relevant research methods, this experiment on rats succeeded only in diverting resources away from modern, animal-free research that could help domestic abuse victims.
What You Can Do
If you’re in the U.S., please take action to support PETA’s Research Modernization Now, which outlines a comprehensive strategy for replacing all experiments on animals with more effective, human-relevant, non-animal methods:
And everyone can help animals by urging the top U.S. blueberry growers’ group to end fruitless experiments on tiny animals:
