Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Proclamation 3763—American Heart Month, 1967

January 24, 1967


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Disease of the heart and blood vessels continues to be the nation's number one killer. Last year it took almost one million American lives.

Heart disease also leaves a fearful toll in physical disability, suffering, blighted lives, and economic waste. The National Health Survey indicates that over 27 million Americans—more than one tenth of our total population—may suffer some form of heart disease.

Nonetheless, the outlook is encouraging. Public and private programs, such as those of the National Heart Institute of the Public Health Service and of the American Heart Association, are yielding substantial progress.

Greatly expanded research has opened new approaches to treatment and prevention, and the prospect for further advances is good. The results of research are helping more and more victims of heart ailments through improved resources and facilities, training and education, and community services.

Untimely death, disability and suffering due to heart disease can all be substantially reduced. How fast we move ahead will depend directly en the extent of public and private interest in and support of the necessary corrective measures.

For these reasons, and in accordance with a joint resolution of Congress, approved December 30, 1963 (77 Stat. 843), requesting the President to issue annually a proclamation designating February as American Heart Month:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of February 1967 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 the programs essential to deal with it effectively.

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 24th day of January 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.

Signature of Lyndon B. Johnson

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

DEAN RUSK

Secretary of State

Lyndon B. Johnson, Proclamation 3763—American Heart Month, 1967 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/306215

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