Proclamation 3892—American Heart Month, 1969

Brilliant advances have been scored in cardiovascular research in recent years. But heart disease remains a formidable threat to our national well-being. It clouds the future of thousands of children. It cuts down men and women in their most productive years.

Nearly every 30 seconds, someone in the United States dies of some form of heart disease. Last year, it took the lives of approximately one million people—over half of all deaths in the Nation. It incapacitates or hampers millions of others, in varying degrees, from living a full and active life.

Heart disease is costly not only to the afflicted but also to the Nation. The cost of medical care for heart and circulatory disease victims exceeds $2.5 billion annually. Lost wages and productivity due to illness and disability are estimated at about $3.5 billion. The loss of future earnings of those who die from heart and blood vessel disease each year is estimated to be in excess of $19 billion.

Despite the magnitude of the heart disease problem, the progress that has been made is encouraging. Today, some heart disease can be prevented. Greatly improved methods of diagnosis and treatment are more readily available to those who are stricken. The death rate is declining in all but one of the main categories of cardiovascular disease.

This progress has resulted in large part from a collaborative undertaking, led by the National Heart Institute as the principal Federal partner and the American Heart Association as the major voluntary ally. Public, professional, and private interests have been mobilized in a truly national endeavor against heart disease. Through this effort, buttressed by a determination to employ every necessary resource, we can continue to move ahead. With the firm support of all our people, the conquest of heart disease can be achieved.

For such reasons, 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, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of February 1969 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 heart disease, and to support programs essential to bring about its solution.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-third.

RICHARD NIXON