Joe Public doesn't provide oversight. He's mostly good at generating outrage. Experts provide oversight, and animal research in the US is highly regulated by experts!
In the dictionary definition that politics is "the total complex of relations between people living in society", academic rigor is defined by academic politics. It is a political problem, which means the definition and fundamental regulation will be made by politicians.
Consider supporting politicians who respect expertise. If you aren't presented with that ballot choice, at least vote against the anti-intellectuals.
Erin Brockovich and Lois Gibbs generated outrage, which was well deserved and a societal good. They were working against unregulated/underregulated firms, which did not have effective oversight.
Oversight for PG&E should have come from the US EPA. I suppose the EPA should have handled Love Canal too, but the agency didn't exist when Hooker dumped their pollutants.
Your cultural references suggest you're American, so you don't have a direct way of interacting with a sovereign nation's internal affairs. You can, however, elect competent politicians who support a competent foreign service.
If you want to verify the work of experts, you need knowledge. You need to read, practice, and talk. Once you develop relevant expertise, you're an expert and no longer Joe Public. There are public universities near you where you can learn any of these topics. If you're in a remarkably remote location, you can take online courses. It takes time, but that's true of almost anything worth doing.
If you aren't willing to do that, you're just proving Asimov right: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
This kind of dismissive attitude and condescending tone is a big part of why people don't trust people who say "trust us, you don't need to know what we're doing to those animals in the secret basement at the university."
For the record I am not American and I have sat in on a few institutional review board meetings that pertained to animal welfare relating to a project that I was involved with.
Animal research is regulated, but not by a public jury. "We don't advertise what we do with animals in the basement" is because extremists have attempted to murder animal researchers in recent memory[1]. In the US we have a review process similar to an IRB for animal research: IACUC.
I'm dismissive of and admittedly rather condescending to people who equate their ignorance to experts' knowledge. But that's the whole point: expertise isn't a hereditary title. It comes from study, and I support anyone's effort to gain it!
For what it's worth: if you've sat on an IRB you're not Joe Public. You may not be a scientist, but you're an expert in another field. You also know that, so I don't get what you're arguing.
