Animal Experimentation: a cost-benefit analysis

"Several countries have taken the lead in requiring a cost-benefit analysis that links animal pain (and other harms) to the scientific worthiness and social significance of the experiment's purpose... The concept of making a cost-benefit analysis sounds reasonable but is difficult to apply because the costs and benefits are incommensurable."

When an entrepreneur or regular man or woman embarks or plans on investing in any business of their choice, they do a cost -benefit analysis as they investigate to see how much they would spend (cost)- cost of production, payments of workers, making the products or services available to the public and how much they will make out of this endeavor; benefit-profit. We all do something similar on a daily basis as we make decisions after taken into consideration the most profitable course of action. The above quote from Barbara Orlans' essay National regulations on animal experiments tries to do the same. It suggests to the reader that some countries and individuals in an attempt to justify animal experimentation have sought out to develop a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate animal experimentation; is the benefit of these experiments to humans worth the cost of the animal lives or better yet, could these benefits trump the cost of animal lives so much so that animal experimentation could be morally defensible?

"... the cost and benefits are incommensurable", incommensurable is just a flashy way or saying you can't add, subtract, multiply or divide apples and oranges. The cost-benefit analysis as Orlans' points out may be reasonable or a great tool for clarifying ethical choices but as i pointed out earlier it is incommensurable; we can't evaluate both aspects of this analysis since they lack the same unit of measurement. A cost-benefit analysis could be done for a business inventive because we could evaluate costs and profit in money value (dollars) but they same can't be done for animal lives and human benefits. Apples and oranges to some extent are even commensurable as we can evaluate them based on one unit "fruit units" since they are both fruits and this goes again to show the difficulties of doing so for animal experimentation. Given all these, lets say we could generate a reasonable and reliable cost-benefit analysis of animal experimentation, how do we put value on the lives of these animal? It is relatively easy to evaluate the benefit end of this analysis because we are the beneficiaries but how do we put ourselves in the animals shoes when we can't even value them as ends to themselves rather means to an end-our ends!