Proclamation 3776—Cancer Control Month, 1967

Ours is an age of unprecedented progress in the field of medical research. Yet cancer continues to plague our people.

Every minute-and-three-quarters, a man, woman or child in America is struck by one of its many forms. In this year alone, more than 300,000 Americans will die of it.

We have taken giant steps toward defeating it: today more people are being cured of cancer than ever before, and our understanding of its causes and characteristics is growing constantly.

But the incidence of cancer is still increasing more rapidly than our progress in curing it. We must intensify our research efforts, and we are:

—The National Cancer Institute of the United States Public Health Service, with a budget of more than $170 million this year, is striving to discover new facts about the causes and cures of cancer.

—Regional medical programs, under the Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke Amendments of 1965, will bring the latest advances in diagnosis and treatment to people throughout the Nation.

—Medicare and other programs are helping to assure Americans of the care they need in the fight against cancer and other diseases.

—I have recently directed the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to appoint a lung cancer task force, to supplement the work of task forces on leukemia, cancer chemotherapy, uterine cancer, solid tumor and breast cancer.

These efforts to combat cancer require the continuing cooperation of scientists, physicians, health agencies, and the public.

To impress upon our people the necessity for such cooperation, the Congress by a joint resolution of March 28, 1938 (52 Stat. 148), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation setting aside the month of April as Cancer Control Month.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of April 1967 as Cancer Control Month; and I invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

I also ask the medical and allied health professions, the communications industries, and all other interested persons and groups to unite during the appointed month in public reaffirmation of this Nation's efforts to control cancer.

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 seventh day of April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-first.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

NICHOLAS DEB. KATZENBACH

Acting Secretary of State