As I see, animal experimentation continues not beacuse of some utilitarian calculus balancing human and animal life, but because our universities produce graduates by thousands, and those graduates need JOBS. It is intellectual-commodity keynesianism, if you will - the sole purpose of it is to keep research workers employed and their "satanic mills" in business.
The use value of that employment does not matter just as it does not matter in the military version of keynesianism. So it could well be that most of animal research is garbage, as you argue, just as much of the military gizmos are - but the only purpose of this madness is to keep capitalism going and NOT to produce any use-value.
wojtek