Proclamation 3634—American Heart Month, 1965

Whereas in the year 1965 heart disease-ailments of the heart and blood vessels-is expected to take a toll of more than one million lives, and year by year continues to be responsible for over half of all the deaths in the United States; and

Whereas an estimated 14.6 million Americans are suffering from heart disease and another 13 million are believed to be suffering from it; and

Whereas that suffering constitutes an indescribable burden of human misery and results in a staggering loss of billions of dollars to our economy; and

Whereas the recent sweep of scientific progress has brought significant new cardiovascular knowledge in the past few years and promises to produce even greater gains in the foreseeable future; and

Whereas other advances are being made in combating cardiovascular diseases through programs of education of the public, training for the health professions, and community services for patients-programs that hasten the benefits of research to suffering humanity; and

Whereas these essential and forward-looking programs are in the main the result of a national partnership of the American Heart Association and its Federal allies, especially the National Heart Institute and the Heart Disease Control Program of the Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and

Whereas joined with them in this partnership are the Nation's many resources for health and, most importantly, the people and their physicians; and

Whereas the recent development of the recommendations of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke shows that we stand at the threshold of an historic breakthrough; and

Whereas, with these and other guideposts and goals of this new year, we can and we must begin an immediate, concerted, and revitalized drive on our Nation's leading killer-heart disease; and

Whereas it is both urgent and indispensable that all of our people become aware of the vast problem of heart disease and of what is being done and can be done about it, and that every citizen join the endeavor as a member of the health forces of the Nation to help speed the conquest of heart disease; and

Whereas the Congress, by a joint resolution approved December 30, 1963 (77 Stat. 843), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation designating February as American Heart Month:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of February 1965 as American Heart Month; and I invite the governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and officials of other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

I urge the people of the United States to give heed to the nationwide problem of the heart and blood vessel diseases, and to support the programs required to bring about its solution.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this 28th day of January in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-ninth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

GEORGE W. BALL,

Acting Secretary of State.