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In addition, I recommend continuation and expansion of the Professional Nurse Traineeship Program to increase the number of nurses trained for key supervisory and teaching positions.

Federal action alone is not enough:

-- State and local governments, schools, hospitals, the health professions, and private citizens all have a big stake in solving the nursing shortage.
-- Each must take on added responsibilities if the growing demand for essential and high quality nursing services is to be met.

Strengthened Training in Public Health

Our State and local public health agencies are attempting to cope with mounting problems, but with inadequate resources.

Our population has risen 27 percent since 1950, and public health problems have become more complex, But there are fewer public health physicians today than in 1950. The number of public health engineers has increased by only a small fraction; and other essential public health disciplines are in short supply.

These shortages have weakened health protection measures in many communities.

The situation would be much worse than it is, but for two Public Health Service training programs:

(1) the program of public health traineeships;

(2) the complementary program of project grants to schools of public health, nursing, and engineering designed to help strengthen graduate or specialized public health training.

The need for these programs is greater today than ever before.

I recommend that the Public Health Traineeship program and the project grant program for graduate training in public health be expanded and extended until 1969.

IV. MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL RETARDATION

Mental illness is a grave problem for the Nation, for the community, and for the family it strikes. It can be dealt with only through heroic measures. It must be dealt with generously and effectively.

Last year, President Kennedy proposed legislation to improve the Nation's mental health and to combat mental retardation.

Congress promptly responded. State and local governments and private organizations joined in that response.

The Congress enacted legislation which should enable us to reduce substantially the number of patients in existing custodial institutions within a decade, through comprehensive community-based mental health services.

Under new legislation passed last year we will train teachers and build community centers for the care and treatment of the mentally handicapped.

It was, as President Kennedy said, "the most significant effort that the Congress of the United States has ever undertaken" on behalf of human welfare and happiness.

We are now moving speedily to put this legislation into effect.

The mentally ill and the mentally retarded have a right to a decent, dignified place in society. I intend to assure them of that place.

The Congress has demonstrated its awareness of the need for action by approving my request for supplemental appropriations for mental retardation programs in the current fiscal year.

This will enable us to get started.

My 1965 budget includes a total of $467 million for the National Institute of Mental Health and for mental retardation activities.

I urge the Congress to approve the full amount requested.

V. HEALTH PROTECTION

Technological progress is not always an unmixed blessing.

To be sure, we have a wealth of new products, unimagined a few generations ago, that make life easier and more rewarding.

But these benefits sometimes carry a price in the shape of new hazards to our health:

-- The air we breathe is being fouled by our great factories, our myriad automobiles and trucks, our huge urban centers.
-- The pure water we once took for granted is being polluted by chemicals and foreign substances.
-- The pesticides indispensable to our farmers sometimes introduce chemicals whose long-range effects upon man are dimly understood.

We must develop effective safeguards to protect our people from hazards in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.

To provide a focal point for vigorous research, training,, and control programs in environmental health, I have requested funds in the 1965 budget to develop plans for additional facilities to house our expanding Federal programs concerned with environmental health.

The Clean Air Act, which I approved last December 17, commits the Federal Government for the first time to substantially increased responsibilities in preventing and controlling air pollution.

I urge prompt action on the supplemental appropriation to finance this new authority in the current fiscal year.

Pesticides

The President's Science Advisory Committee report on Pesticides, released last May, alerted the country to the potential health dangers of pesticides.

To act without delay:

I have submitted requests to the Congress for additional funds for 1964 and 1965 for research on the effects of pesticides on our environment.

I recommend enactment of pending legislation prohibiting the registration and marketing of pesticides until a positive finding of safety has been made.