[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 40 (Monday, October 8, 2001)]
[Page 1414]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7477--National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, 2001

 October 3, 2001

 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

 [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., October 5, 
2001]

Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on 
October 9.