For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 3, 2001
President Proclaims National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
This October, as we mark the 12th observance of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we renew our commitment to the struggle against breast cancer and salute the courage of Americans living with this serious disease. The effects of breast cancer have touched many of us, whether through personal diagnosis or the diagnosis of a family member or friend.
We may know someone who has survived
breast cancer due to early detection and improved
treatment. Unfortunately, we also know that a cure cannot
come soon enough. This year, approximately 192,000 women
will be diagnosed with breast cancer. By increasing
awareness about the importance of early detection and accelerating the
use of recent innovative advances in medical research, we can reduce
the incidence of breast cancer in our Nation.
Until a cure is found, health care
professionals agree that regular mammograms are essential to ensuring
the early detection of breast cancer. The good news is that the
message about early detection is being heard. In 1998,
almost 70 percent of women age 40 and older had a mammogram in the last
two years. And this year, Medicare coverage was expanded to
include digital mammograms, offering women another approach for early
detection.
As the primary agency in the United States
for cancer research, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) leads the
research efforts to find a cure for this disease. Our goal
is a future free of breast cancer. We will achieve this goal
by developing new treatments and therapies and by better understanding
what causes breast cancer. The NCI will spend an estimated
$463.8 million on breast cancer research this year. That
figure will increase to an estimated $510 million next year; and
overall National Institutes of Health (NIH) expenditures on breast
cancer research are slated to reach $630 million for Fiscal Year
2002. My Administration supports an increase in spending for
the NIH, of which NCI is a part, and has proposed that, by 2003,
funding for NIH be twice what it was in 1998.
I urge all Americans at risk for breast
cancer to use appropriate screenings that can detect it at its initial
stages. Until we find a cure, early detection is our most
essential tool in fighting this disease. Recent medical successes
allow us to say that the war on breast cancer will succeed.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH,
President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in
me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby
proclaim October 2001, as National Breast Cancer Awareness
Month. I call upon government officials, businesses,
communities, health care professionals, educators, volunteers, and all
the people of the United States to publicly reaffirm our Nation's
strong and continuing commitment to controlling and curing breast
cancer.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
hand this third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand
one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-sixth.
GEORGE W. BUSH
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