Proclamation 4424—Cancer Control Month, 1976

The National Cancer Program, representing both Federal agencies and non-Federal organizations, is the most massive undertaking of its kind.

Through the Program, established by the National Cancer Act of 1971, and given new vitality by the amendments of 1974, we are continuing to explore the causes and eventual control of cancer. Cancers are being detected earlier, making them more amenable to diagnosis and treatment. Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are making further inroads on cancer and immunotherapy shows bright promise of joining them as a means of treatment. Research findings on the disease are now reaching the prac­ticing physician faster than ever before.

Although we can take pride in these accomplishments, current cancer statistics remind us that we cannot be apathetic. It is estimated that 675,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in our country in 1976. That means about 370,000 people will die of the disease. Only through relentless, aggressive support of cancer research and control can we eventually reduce these figures to an absolute minimum.

In order to give continuing emphasis to the cancer problem, the Congress, by a joint resolution of March 28, 1938 (52 Stat. 148, 36 U.S.C. 150), requested the Presi­dent to issue annually a proclamation designating the month of April as Cancer Control Month.

Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of April, 1976, as Cancer Control Month, and I invite the Governors of the several States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, and the appropriate officials of all other areas under the United States flag to issue similar proclamations.

I also ask the medical and health professions, the communications media, and all other interested persons and groups to unite during this appointed time in public reaffirmation of our Nation's abiding commitment to cancer control.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-six, and of the Inde­pendence of the United States of America the two hundredth.

GERALD R. FORD