A top-10 list indicates 6 primates, cat, dog, and cow. While there has been a lot of testing done on primates and dogs, they are much more sympathetic for animal-rights groups, and the general public, when protesting vivisection, breeding, and confinement.

Anatomically and behaviorally, primates would still be the top choices there. And many, many disciplines experiment on animals, where results don't come at the genetic level.

Good, the genetics match closely. But mice (or rats: see the idiom "lab rat") are also considered vermin, prolific breeders, fit in your hand, short life-cycle, and easily obtained. So they join fruit flies in the lab experiments.

Interestingly, pigs are used in many types of medicine while not enjoying that genetic similarity. In the 1950s and 60s, your insulin and thyroid meds were often derived from pigs.

All that may well be true. But one doesn’t have to be a leader in the field of genomics to have read decades of articles breathlessly proclaiming medical breakthroughs (in mice) and then not ever seeing them hit the market (in humans.)

Or in other words the meat of the critique is not aimed at genomics, but rather in science marketing.

I'm not sure why the snark is necessary. Nobody is suggesting that mice are a terrible animal model or trying to tell researchers how to do their jobs, they're just frustrated by pop science coverage that leaves crucial information out of the headline and over-hypes early research. At least the BBC article doesn't bury the lede.