Proclamation 4212—National Arthritis Month, 1973

Arthritis and the rheumatic diseases are the Nation's number one crippling disorders. They afflict some 17 million Americans of all ages, causing their victims untold suffering and cruel limitations of normal activity. Among the chronic illnesses suffered by our people, only heart disease is more widespread. The cost of arthritis and rheumatic diseases to Americans must be counted not only in billions of dollars of lost earnings and medical expenses each year, but also in poignant human terms.

This is a price we need not continue to pay. Year by year the advancement of medical science through private and publicly supported medical research and education permits thousands of arthritis victims to receive more effective treatment and live freer lives. We can and must continue this progress and extend its benefits to all who have been so unjustly sentenced to lives of pain and disability from arthritis and the rheumatic diseases.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of May 1973 as National Arthritis Month. 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 individuals and organizations working in the educational, philanthropic, scientific, medical and health care fields to accelerate our national effort to discover the cause and cures of arthritis and rheumatic diseases and to alleviate the suffering of persons struck by these disorders. And I ask the wholehearted support of all Americans for this vital humanitarian cause.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-seventh.

RICHARD NIXON