Alternative medicine
The Nazis promoted heilpraktiker as a counter within alternative medicine to the "occult" practices of anthroposophy. Alternative medicine researcher Edzard Ernst have written about the links between heilpraktiker and Nazism, and described it as "a relic from the Nazis that endangers public health" in a series of blog posts, also arguing against extension of the practice. Heilpraktiker have been identified as involved with fake cancer cures. A law regarding the profession of heilpraktiker was issued on 18 February 1939, named "Erste Durchführungsverordnung zum Gesetz über die berufsmäßige Ausübung der Heilkunde ohne Bestallung" (First regulation implementing the law on the professional practice of medicine without bestowal), or short: Heilpraktikergesetz.