Such great progress has been made in the welfare of lab animals and I think, while not perfect, the regulations that help determine and control the use of animals in a lab setting bring some focus to the fact that we should not take animal lives lightly. New techniques with tissue samples etc... have further lessened the need for certain research on animals. However, we would have to give up on a great deal of medical and safety research or switch to human subjects much earlier in the process of research if we were to forgo the use of animal models. Neither is going to happen. Pitching a fit and freeing the specifically bred animals that are useful in research as if they are still capable of survival like their wild relatives simply offers suffering and death. In the hands of researchers, the suffering of animals is supposed to be minimized and their eventual euthanasia as pain and stress free as possible. It really is the best we can do if we are to continue to strive for new disease understanding and treatments etc...