Proclamation 5533—Child Health Day, 1986

It is fitting that we celebrate Child Health Day in the month marking the beginning of the centennial year of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH has served all Americans through research that has helped us to safeguard and enhance the health of our Nation's children.

Because of the NIH's biomedical research, deaths from illnesses common to children—diarrhea and infectious diseases-have been markedly reduced in this country and throughout the world. Many youngsters with chronic disorders, like diabetes and asthma, are leading nearly normal lives, thanks to research advances that have provided new medications and new therapeutic techniques. Childhood cancers, once inevitably and invariably fatal, are now yielding to treatment. Some are being cured. Infant mortality has shown a dramatic decrease in recent years, due in large part to a better understanding of the nutritional needs and environmental support systems needed to assure the survival of low-weight and premature infants.

On this Child Health Day, 1986, we must reaffirm our commitment to protect and improve the health of our children, for they represent our future.

Now, Therefore, L Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, pursuant to a joint resolution approved on May 18, 1928, as amended (36 U.S.C. 143), do hereby proclaim Monday, October 6, 1986, as Child Health Day.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eleventh.

RONALD REAGAN