Proclamation 4828—Cancer Control Month

This year an estimated 805,000 Americans will be diagnosed as having cancer. About 134,000 cancer patients will die who might have been saved by earlier diagnosis and prompt treatment.

While cancer is often called the disease Americans fear most, it is also now one of the most manageable chronic diseases in our country. We are approaching the day when, through surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, half of the most serious forms of cancer can be cured.

Although we still face an enormous struggle in treating this disease, we must reaffirm today our ultimate goal—the cure of all those struck by this dread disease.

In addition to improving treatment for cancer patients, we must also reduce the incidence of this disease. In view of increasing evidence that a majority of cancers are related to environment and lifestyle, the major effect of Federal research today is in these areas.

Vigorous cancer research, directed to both treatment and prevention, must continue. All of us look to the day when this disease has been eradicated as a major threat to American lives.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of April 1981 as Cancer Control Month, and I invite the Governors of the States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the appropriate officials of all other areas of the United States flag to issue similar proclamations.

To give emphasis to this serious problem and to encourage the determination of the American people to meet it, I also ask the medical and health professions, the communications industries, and all other interested persons and groups to unite during this appointed time in public reaffirmation of our Nation's abiding commitment to control cancer.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 20th day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eightyone, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.

RONALD REAGAN