As a person who does this stuff on a daily basis I have to call bull sh-- on some of these statements. The animal welfare committee's at universities and private firms are required to follow very strict guidelines on what you do to animals...back in the 80's those committee were basically nonexistant. We have to spell out everything we do with animals and have to wait approval of the committee...the membership on these committee's include people from outside the institution, so they don't just rubber stamp the proposals. Contrary to your belief we are not ghoul's who love to torture animals...
Anyway...working for a big drug company we do this stuff everday in the hope that we may help cure or treat some of the maladies that afflict mankind...we treat the animals with respect, I can't site one example of an animal being mistreated purposefully in the 20 some years I've been involved with animal testing...furthermore, animal testing is very expensive and therefore very few redundant or dumb experiments are conducted.
AFA mimicing paying bills, traffic jams, etc...those stressfull events produce a physiological consequence that can be modeled in animals...if you can modify those physiological events in animals, you most likely can modify those events in people....it ain't that complicated.
BTW Moose, are you a Ned Lamont supporter?