Save Your Vision Week, 1999

Proclamation 7171 of March 1, 1999

Save Your Vision Week, 1999

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Vision is an extraordinary blessing--one that should be
cherished and protected. Complex and remarkable organs,
the eyes work in concert with the brain to produce
vision, allowing us to experience the beauty and
variety of the physical world around us.

Because blindness and vision loss are often avoidable,
the maintenance of good vision must be a top health
priority and an integral part of every American's
overall health care routine. Preventative eye care is
particularly important because there are often no
warning signs or pain associated with many eye
diseases, and, by the time vision loss is identified,
it is frequently too late to undo the damage. Periodic
dilated pupil eye examinations can reveal the early
signs of eye disease and buy precious time for
treatment.

It is equally important to protect our eyes from
injury, another leading cause of vision loss. Each
year, more than 2.4 million eye injuries occur in the
United States. By using protective eyewear when working
with machinery or chemicals, playing sports, or
engaging in other recreational activities, we can help
prevent irreparable loss of sight.

Taking measures to prevent vision loss in our children
is especially important because their early development
and academic achievement can suffer due to vision
problems or diseases. Even before they begin school,
children should undergo a complete eye examination so
that poor vision or eye disorders can be appropriately
treated.

As the 21st century fast approaches, our national
investment in research to prevent, postpone, and treat
eye diseases and disorders has produced substantial
results. Laser technology, new medications, gene
mapping, innovations in diagnostic techniques, and
other sight-saving discoveries are improving the lives
of millions of Americans. These advances in medical
research, combined with preventative eye care and
increased safety measures, can all work to preserve our
gift of sight.

To remind our citizens of the importance of
safeguarding their eyesight, the Congress, by join
resolution approved December 30, 1963 (77 Stat. 629; 36
U.S.C. 169a), has authorized and requested the
President to proclaim 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 March 7
through March 13, 1999, as Save Your Vision Week. I
urge all Americans to participate by making eye care
and eye safety an important part of their lives and to
ensure that dilated eye examinations are included in
their regular health maintenance programs. I invite eye
care professionals, the media, and all public and
private organizations dedicated to preserving eyesight
to join in activities that will raise awareness of the
measures we can take to protect and sustain our vision.

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