Save Your Vision Week, 1994

Proclamation 6652 of March 2, 1994

Save Your Vision Week, 1994

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Vision is a gift to be treasured. We often take our
sight for granted and must be reminded that our eyes
require adequate care and attention. At a time when new
technologies are revolutionizing medicine, eye care
continues to make dramatic progress. Many diseases or
accidents that would have caused permanent blindness
just a few decades ago can now be treated, with
excellent prospects for full recovery. Eye care
professionals learn more about proper eye care every
year, discovering new ways to prevent disease and to
minimize potential damage to our precious eyesight.

Despite our ever-increasing medical knowledge, however,
thousands of Americans still suffer preventable vision
loss each year. Proper eye care can significantly
reduce the incidence of such needless tragedies, and I
encourage all Americans to learn ways to minimize the
risks of disease and injury to their eyes.

Having periodic eye examinations is an excellent way to
invest in one's long-term health. Preventive eye care
is always more efficient, more effective, and less
expensive than dealing with an existing disease. A
comprehensive eye examination allows an eye care
professional the ability to identify a disease in its
earliest stages and prescribe the treatment with the
best chances for success.

Glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness in the
United States, if diagnosed early, can be treated quite
successfully. Though there are often no early warning
symptoms of the disease, an eye care professional can
detect the affliction during a regular examination and
prescribe eye drops or other simple treatments to
control the disease and save the patient's sight. I
urge all people at high risk for glaucoma--African
Americans over the age of 40 and everyone over the age
of 60--to receive an eye examination through dilated
pupils at least every two years.

People with diabetes are also at particularly high risk
for preventable eye disorders. Such eye disease as
diabetic retinopathy, which still blinds many people
with diabetes in our Nation, can be stopped if it is
diagnosed in time. By receiving an eye examination at
least once a year, diabetics can do much to protect
their vision.

Children, of course, should receive periodic eye
examinations, starting when they are very young.
Regular eye care at a tender age can identify otherwise
hidden disorders, thus sparing the child a lifetime of
visual impairment.

I encourage all Americans to take precautions to
safeguard their vision throughout their lives. We must
teach our children proper eye safety by example--
wearing masks or goggles when we play in contact sports
and using safety glasses when working with volatile
chemicals or dangerous machinery.

To encourage everyone to make a concerted effort to
protect the cherished gift of sight, the Congress, by a
joint resolution approved December 30, 1963 (77 Stat.
629; 36 U.S.C. 169a), has authorized and requested the
President to issue a proclamation designating the first
week in March of each year as ``Save Your Vision
Week.''

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week
beginning March 6, 1994, as Save Your Vision Week. I
urge all Americans to participate in this observance by
making eye care and eye safety a priority in their
lives. I invite eye care professionals, members of the
media, and all public and private organizations
committed to the important goal of sight protection to
join in activities that will make Americans more aware
of the steps they can take to protect their vision.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
second day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-four, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and
eighteenth.

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