The veterinarian was allowed to treat people with formaldehyde
The Saratov Regional Prosecutor's Office dropped the criminal case brought against a senior researcher at the Saratov Veterinary Research Station, Candidate of Medical Sciences, 56-year-old Vladimir Rybin. He came under investigation for treating seriously ill people with formalin solution.

Rybin graduated from the pediatric faculty of the medical institute. While working at a veterinary station, he conducted experiments on animals and, in order to increase immunity, injected a 0.2% solution of formaldehyde in an isotonic solution. Based on these experiments, Rybin invented a medicine for people - an immunomodulator (0.07 percent formaldehyde solution stabilized with saline solution). He was unable to conduct the necessary clinical trials of the drug due to their high cost. Nevertheless, Rybin was confident that the drug mobilizes the body’s immunity and helps with serious diseases, including cancer, so he began using it without waiting for permission from the Ministry of Health and the issuance of a patent.
On May 29, 1996, employees of the Department for Combating Economic Crimes burst into the building of the veterinary research station, where Rybin was receiving patients. They detained Rybin and conducted searches. The reason for the visit of the police, as they later explained, was information they received that Rybin was illegally treating people and taking large sums of money for it.
At first, they wanted to charge the doctor with three articles of the Criminal Code: fraud, concealment of profits from taxation and illegal healing. As a result, they were accused only of fraud on an especially large scale.
Rybin, through whose office hundreds of people passed, confirmed that he did indeed take money from patients. The course of his treatment - three injections - required significant costs for the preparation of the drug.
The opinions of Rybin's patients were divided. Some said that the treatment did not work. Others, on the contrary, helped, even with severe illnesses. The charges against Rybin claimed that about 70% of patients felt worse after treatment, but witnesses refuted such categorical conclusions. After all, Rybin took on the most serious diseases, such as sarcoma. Even the relatives of the deceased patients assessed his treatment differently: it is possible that in some cases there was improvement and relief, but the patients came to Rybin in too serious a condition. Among the witnesses there were also those who claimed that after the injections they were cured of cancer.
The doctor’s case was transferred to the Oktyabrsky District Court, but it sent him for further investigation. The prosecutor's office did not continue the investigation. The factor that played a role in the termination of the criminal case was that after its initiation, Rybin nevertheless received a patent for the immunomodulator.

ELENA Kommersant, Saratov

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 84 dated May 20, 1999, p. 6