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PETA has learned from Animal-Free Science Advocacy that experimenters at Monash University pounded rats in the head with heavy weights to inflict painful, traumatic brain injuries purportedly to study the human health impacts of domestic violence. Other rats were subjected to both head trauma and non-lethal strangulation by having heavy weights suspended from their delicate necks.
Modified from Figure 1 in Sun et al., 2025. Pathophysiology, blood biomarkers, and functional deficits after intimate partner violence-related brain injury: Insights from emergency department patients and a new rat model. Brain Behav Immun. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2024.09.030. | Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons
Dozens of rats used were denied adequate pain relief and suffered from their injuries before they were killed. Some rats were also subjected to the widely discredited forced swim test.
This may sound familiar. PETA US previously called out Monash experimenters for brain-damaging rats and strangling them within an inch of their lives. Now, here we are again, with the same university plumbing the depths of violence for a second time.
It's Violence, Not Science
Monash has subjected dozens of rats to this cruelty, which attempts to mimic the injuries endured by human victims of domestic violence—a pointless comparison. Rats and humans have vast cognitive and physiological differences, and they simply don’t manifest trauma in comparable ways.
Tormenting highly social and empathetic rats steals time and money from modern, human-relevant research that could help domestic abuse victims. Animal-free methods to study brain injuries, such as advanced imaging and computer models, are effective, readily available, and don’t rack up an animal body count.
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council bankrolled these experiments with at least $1.9 million in public money despite the fact that it arguably violates Victoria’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and Australia’s standards for replacing the use of animals in experiments with non-animal methods.
Alliance for HOPE International—a leading US nonprofit that supports domestic violence survivors and has created the leading training and outreach organisation in the world on the handling of strangulation assaults—has joined PETA Australia and PETA US in:
- Urging Monash and the Council to prohibit all strangulation and traumatic brain injury experiments on animals, as well as the forced swim test, and to fully transition away from animal testing by adopting PETA US' Research Modernisation Now strategic roadmap
- Calling on government officials at Animal Welfare Victoria to launch an investigation into Monash’s strangulation and traumatic brain injury experiments on rats to assess whether breaches of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act have occurred, as well as prohibit the replication of domestic violence scenarios and other violent criminal acts in experiments on the supporting regulations being developed for Victoria’s Animal Care and Protection Bill.
What You Can Do
Please join us by taking action today.
Urge Monash University, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and Animal Welfare Victoria to prohibit the conduct, funding, and permitting of animal strangulation and brain injury experiments, respectively.
After you take action, you’ll see an easy way to share this information. Please ask five friends or relatives to support this campaign!