Proclamation 4588—National Lupus Week, 1978

Five hundred thousand Americans suffer from Lupus erythematosus, an increasingly prevalent disease of the connective tissue. There are an estimated 50,000 new victims each year, mostly young women.

In the systemic form, lupus can affect almost any part of the body and create abnormalities in the skin, joints, kidney, heart, or other internal organs. Lupus is often fatal but even if not, its victims still endure pain and anguish.

We have made progress in understanding lupus in the last few years. Thousands of sufferers can look forward to improved treatment and the opportunity to live more productive and happier lives. Today's outlook is far from bleak, but we still need new research and alternative approaches to treatment and diagnosis if we are to eliminate lupus as a cause of human suffering and to improve life for its victims.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17 through September 23, 1978 as National Lupus Week. 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 and educational, philanthropic, scientific, medical, and health care organizations and professionals to provide the necessary assistance and resources to discover the cause and cure of lupus erythematosus and the other rheumatic diseases and to alleviate the suffering of all persons struck by these disorders.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and third.

JIMMY CARTER