Not trying to hate on the OP, but I think that comparing a reduction in the death rate to the number of animals "used" in research over the same course of time cannot result in any meaningful conclusion. Medical research may not be the sole reason that death rate decreases, and it's certainly not true that the medical research being conducted during the five years that lab. animals were counted could have had any effect on the population during that time. If anything, the medical research from something like 10 years before, having gone through animal studies and finally human trials, might have its effects during that 5 yr period but it just doesn't make sense to think that research being done on animals could ever be improving the general public's health at the same time.
The statistic also fails to appreciate the fact that the successes of research are not necessarily continuous with time. Instead, there may be little therapeutic progress for years until finally some "breakthrough" occurs, at which point unsuccessful therapies might be supplanted by more effective ones. Looking at the reduction in death rate for the entire population over some random 5 yr period isn't as meaningful as examining changes in the survival rate of a well-defined population following the introduction of a particular therapy. And if one were to rely upon a similar statistic regarding the first 5 yrs after the introduction of an effective vaccine against HIV, you'd see no change in the death rate because even as the vaccine is preventing infection, a successful viral infection wouldn't typically defeat its hosts' immune systems (leading to death) during that timeframe anyways.
So, change in death rate is not the best indication of the success of biomedical research for that reason and because it doesn't include successful new treatments that may improve quality-of-life, say by preventing blindness or other non-fatal disorders (that presumably don't contribute significantly to the general death rate).
Nonetheless, the toll on animals used in scientific investigations is a heavy one and I have to say I'm still undecided. Consider, however, that there is no viable alternative beyond animal models when one wants to study a phenomenon in a living, non-human system. If we don't study it in humans and we don't study it in animals, there simply is no other option. You might argue that you could use "lower animals," but that just isn't legitimate in the case of vaccine trials where we need to test them in a system that is as close to our own as possible (ie. non-human primates). And believe me, researchers will try to choose as primitive of an animal model as possible because, as far as I know, they're always cheaper than a "higher" organism.
Without animal experiments, though, you might as well abandon the manifest destiny of modern biomedicine-- that is, to solve all of our medical problems. If you want to discuss whether the inexorable advances of technological progress have a strongly compelling motivation beyond merely doing what we are able to do because we can, or whether human health is the highest good and human suffering is really all that bad, those are other issues. Otherwise, what do you say as the global AIDS pandemic marches on and the ranks of the HIV-infected swell?
At the same time, I'm sympathetic for the little guys -- it is sad that they are forced to endure such an existence for our benefit. Experiments on apes and monkeys are probably the most problematic for me because of their close similarity to us, but I have far fewer misgivings with animals like mice or drosophila. Besides, the euthanization procedures in place today are meant to reduce the likelihood of them suffering, which is really the most you can do. I should probably say that I've never had to kill any of them, though, so I can't say that I've experienced the discomfort that accompanies that.
