Heilpraktiker

Heilpraktiker ("healing practitioner") is a naturopathic profession in Germany. It is recognized as an alternative and complementary health care profession by German law.[1] A heilpraktiker does not need to have any formal education or training but must do an exam at the health authorities. This exam used to be somewhat basic until the 1980s, at which time it was made to become much more demanding. A candidate needs to have good knowledge of medical sciences, such as anatomy, physiology and pathology and psychiatry; a good knowledge of law regulations is also needed.[2] Healing practitioners often specialize in a complementary and alternative field of healthcare that could be anything from faith healing, homeopathy, phytotherapy, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, to reflexology or acupuncture. A healing practitioner is a person who is allowed to practice as a non-medical practitioner using any unconventional therapy. About 35000 heilpraktiker are accredited in Germany.[3]

Heilpraktiker were created by the Nazis as a counter within alternative medicine to the "occult" practices of anthroposophy.[4] The Nazi link was noted in a 1939 Time article titled "Hitler's quacks",[5] and alternative medicine researcher Edzard Ernst has also written on the links between heilpraktiker and Nazism,[6] and described it as "a relic from the Nazis that endangers public health" in a series of blog posts,[7] also arguing against extension of the practice.[8] Heilpraktiker have been identified as involved with fake cancer cures.[9]