Hegseth Orders Annual Testosterone Screenings for Troops
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- Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. service members aged 30 and older will undergo annual testosterone deficiency screenings as part of their periodic health assessment, with elective testing available to younger members and treatment left to individual discretion.
- Medical experts are sharply split: Abraham Morgentaler of Harvard Medical School calls testosterone "easily the best single indicator of a man's health status," while Adrian Dobs of Johns Hopkins calls the policy "crazy," citing assay variability, broad normal ranges, and significant logistics costs.
- The policy fits a broader Trump administration embrace of testosterone—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly said he takes testosterone, and the FDA recently revised testosterone product labels to remove a disproven warning about prostate cancer risk and a statement about lack of proven efficacy in older men.
- Major American medical organizations currently recommend against routine testosterone screening, with Helen Bernie of Indiana University noting diagnosis requires "both consistent symptoms and repeatedly low morning testosterone levels, along with an evaluation for reversible causes."
- Dobs flagged a key medical risk: "if a man is taking testosterone, his own body will stop making it, and this is particularly a problem when it comes to sperm production."
- Hegseth framed the screenings as keeping service members "on the leading edge of lethality," raising concerns among specialists that equating higher testosterone with better performance will drive overtreatment in the absence of clear symptoms.
Why it matters: The Defense Department is implementing a screening program that runs counter to guidelines from major American medical organizations, which recommend against routine testosterone testing. If the approach proves controversial yet defensible, it could give political cover for broader adoption of annual testosterone screening for men over 30 in civilian medicine—and fuel a testosterone therapy market that health influencers and online clinics have already expanded aggressively.
