Proclamation 5891 --
National Adult Immunization Week, 1988
October 27, 1988
By
the President of the United States of
America
A
Proclamation
America does well to hold a
national week of observance to remind citizens that the need for immunization
does not stop with childhood. Vaccine-preventable diseases continue to kill grown-ups
in our Nation; as many as 70,000 adults die each year because they do not take
advantage of vaccines for influenza, pneumococcal
pneumonia, hepatitis B, tetanus, and other preventable infectious diseases.
Even among people at greatest risk for complications -- the elderly and the
chronically ill -- fewer than one in five routinely receive annual influenza
vaccination and fewer than one in 10 have been vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia.
Immunization
with safe and effective vaccines can greatly reduce the tragic loss of life and
reduce the massive costs associated with health care. The Surgeon General of
the United States has repeatedly urged
adults to use appropriate preventive health-care practices, including
vaccination for diseases preventable through immunization. We can all do our
share in making sure we ourselves and members of our families know about and
receive immunization, and that our neighbors and communities have the same
opportunity.
In
recognition of the importance of adult immunization and of the benefits of
public awareness, the Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 335, has designated
the week beginning October 23, 1988, as ``National Adult Immunization Awareness
Week'' and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in
observance of this occasion.
Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of
America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning October
23, 1988,
as National Adult Immunization Awareness Week. I call upon all government
agencies and the people of the United States to observe this week
with appropriate activities.
In
Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of
October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the two hundred and thirteenth.
Ronald
Reagan
[Filed with the Office
of the Federal Register, 10:46 a.m., October 28, 1988]