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Pentagon rescinds new testosterone screening policy without explanation
- tyleo 23d agoI don’t know much about this except that I know perfectly normal or even jacked men with lower than expected testosterone. I suspect messing with hormones based on the results of a test and no actual problems can unnecessarily alter mood. So my theory—based mostly on conjecture—is that these tests selected people they didn’t expect and the treatments would do more harm than good.
- noir_lord 23d agoI think it's simpler than that, I think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Not sure there has been a less capable Secretary of Defence in my lifetime than who they currently have in the role. Note: not saying less objectionable, I'd put Rumsfeld right alongside for that but as much as I didn't like the man, it was hard to argue he was incapable.
- amelius 23d agoBoth can be true. Incompetence AND malice.
- schiffern 23d agoTroublingly, I think he actually does think these ideas are helpful. Is a True Believer any less dangerous? "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
- noir_lord 23d agoThey are generally dangerous but they are truly dangerous when what they believe is itself dangerous.
- jjgreen 23d agoI'll be using that
- hedora 23d agoYou’ll like the Simple Sabotage Field Manual too: https://archive.org/details/simplesabotagefi26184gut/page/n1/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/simplesabotagefi26184gut/page/n1... It helped the allies win WWII. It contains lots of good advice (and the white collar chapter should be required reading in corporate training).
- dylan604 23d agoI think True Believer is worse. I would say that if someone is willing to try something while still willing to accept that it might not work but need to confirm they'd be a rational person. A True Believer will not accept that the thing is not working and try to rationalize why others are still wrong.
- budman1 23d agoa while back we had an army private as the secretary of defense. end of the day, his experience as a private meant nothing towards the job. perhaps he was slightly more able to relate to the needs of the troops. now we have a reserve captain. who was pushed out of the service for extremest views and body art. his experience means he hates the army, and his selection to the post means his political views have been vindicated. a master of strategy? leader of men in battle? CEO of the worlds biggest institution? nope. he doesn't even understand those roles.
- bryancoxwell 23d agoOr simpler still, although related. Maybe we just can’t afford it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/pentagon-sinking-billions-into-iran-is-quickly-running-short-cash/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/...
- xnx 23d agoNot being able to afford something has never stopped the US before.
- duskdozer 23d agoWell, depends on what "something"
- bryancoxwell 23d agoIt’s literally stopping them from routine training and maintenance.
- Jgrubb 23d agoRumsfeld put in the work and was very smart. His natural disposition was such that, when given the ring of power, things went badly. The current head of DoD is basically a manosphere influencer that bumbled into this job. Now, I'm not an endocrinologist, just an aging guy, but from my current vantage point it appears that over the course of my life, many stupid decisions have been made that I have lived to tell about. I can't help but feel that my "wisdom of age" might just be testosterone getting out of the way. This is all to say that our current "situation" just kinda looks like one insecure guys roid rage when you take a big step back.
- lokar 23d agoTrump was pretty clear he chose him because he looked good in TV.
- tyleo 23d agoI think we're saying the same thing. I suspect there were a lot of people saying, "this probably won't work," but the Secretary of Defense pursued it anyways until real problems materialized.
- InsideOutSanta 23d agoIt still irks me that people mocked Rumsfeld's explanation of unknown unknowns. The guy was probably a terrible excuse for a human being, but he wasn't stupid, and that quote was a pretty good explanation for why we shouldn't be overconfident in our knowledge: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
- YackerLose 23d agoWisdom tends to sound obvious, and obvious statements aren't novel. The digital society values the novel over the wise.
- mattm 23d agoAnyone who's ever worked on a software project can attest to this
- smallerize 22d agoIt's the context that makes it crazy. Someone asked if there was any evidence of a link between Iraq and WMDs, at a press conference, and this is how he avoided giving an answer or taking any accountability.
- mirmor23 22d agoRumsfeld heard it from some smart guy in NASA and repackaged it to sell Iraq war. This is similar to the influencers bandying around 'algorithms'; Rumsfeld is more like the Big Lebowski in parroting whatever to make him look smart. Never for a moment he stopped to think about the amount of damage that would haunt the veterans that served there. He wrote a book about leadership but he lacked balls to do anything about Abu Ghraib for example, nor he did anything to stop the war. IMO he is just another corporate coward. In his most stunning display of 'leadership', he used autopen to stamp his signature on condolence letters sent to the families of soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Imagine that!
- ethbr1 22d ago
- XorNot 23d agoGoing on injectable testosterone suppresses natural production. It also leads to compensatory feedback effects like an increase in estrogen. Once you're on it it's very hard to come off it, and the side effects are significant.
- alexgieg 23d agoThere's also the relevant details that we don't live at a time in which being extremely muscular and full of aggressiveness (which is what the testosterone policy was meant to cause) makes one a good soldier. Being healthy and able to exert a lot of physical effort is absolutely needed, but beyond that not much is gained. To put it mildly, no matter how pumped up with hormones one is, one cannot outrun an explosion (much less a thermobaric one), a sniper firing from hundreds of meters away or, for that matter, a drone swarm. For those kinds of challenge other traits are needed. And these required traits are dismissed as unimportant, just witness all the extremely competent military personal, including medal recipients, who were dismissed or made to "voluntarily" resign due to stuff that had no bearing whatsoever on whether they were good soldiers or not. Note: I'm not American and, from the perspective of my country's own national interests, which tend to be at odds with the US's more often than not, it's a good thing the US is doing all of this, since it's making itself weaker. But from a personal perspective, that I find it quite sad, I do. I have too many American friends for me not to worry about what this will cause them on the long run.
- Der_Einzige 22d agoThis is also why I'd reform all types of US Military basic training. It's shocking to see how different the treatment is between standard basic training for US grunts vs for example, the UK. In the UK, the things valued and required of their soldiers are far less focused on "breaking them down and building them up again", there's an order of magnitude less yelling, there's more liberty, and there's less of an "ethos to kill". Yet the Royal Marines, having gone through this kind of training, can still regularly mog our own special forces troops and has proven that in the Fakland wars, a war they may very well be having a rd 2 in soon. For context, US Marine basic training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjDHoNcH5o4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjDHoNcH5o4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9gnRQaXH38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9gnRQaXH38 Compare this to Royal Marine (officer) basic training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv-pxrUNhmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv-pxrUNhmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ime0t2I_eKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ime0t2I_eKE
- kansface 22d ago
- josefresco 22d agoYou're giving them too much credit. It's pure incompetence/malfeasance like everything the regime does in the name of "culture wars". Somewhere, some testosterone lab with connections got paid.
- somenameforme 22d agoI wouldn't be surprised if they didn't understand that testosterone can't be 'supplemented' in the normal sense because of how it operates. If somebody gets a testosterone supplement, your own body will stop producing testosterone. And if you ever stop taking the supplement, your own natural production may never return. So it's often a one-way trip. If you're on t-replacement, you're on t-replacement for life. An army that would fall to pieces without a constant supply of testosterone supplements is probably not going to be the most effective fighting force.
- ethbr1 22d agoThere are ways of more cleverly nudging testosterone (and estrogen) production without directly supplementing. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5009465/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5009465/
- somenameforme 22d agoInteresting. I'm somewhat into body building and had never even heard of this. Thanks for the link. Great rabbit hole to go down!
- ungreased0675 23d agoI was very curious what the results were going to show.
- ceejayoz 22d agoThey'll release them right after they finish the "tylenol causes autism" study.
- deleted 23d ago[deleted]
- deepsquirrelnet 23d agoThey wouldn't provide results. You'd only get conclusions that were made from the beginning.
- Joel_Mckay 23d agoShorter lives due to cardiovascular damage, and shrinking testicles as their body fails to regulate the self-inflicted hormone imbalance... Also irrational mood swings... A million piece puzzle was just solved. Real athletes never touch the stuff for good reason, and sport organizers tend to test the 40lb overweight dude keeping pace as obviously more suspicious. =3
- ungreased0675 22d agoTesting levels does none of that.
- Joel_Mckay 22d agoJust like ADHD medications were repurposed as pseudo Nootropics in healthy people, Sildenafil is no longer primarily used for heart medication, and GLP-1 drugs are not primarily sold to diabetics anymore. Hormone therapies are often popular with wealthy geriatric men naively hoping to preserve their physical prowess after their prime. A test is unnecessary, as anyone can look at just their age to know with a fair degree of certainty what is happening biologically. The gamble is the long term side effects won't bring up their expiration date sooner. "Testing" under these contexts is often just a euphemism for ethically dubious medical interventions. Could also just get outside for a brisk walk everyday, eat healthy, and enjoy a fun life. =3
- bflesch 23d agoIs there even a US-based testosterone supply chain? Or was the idea to inject all their service members with a product from overseas that could have supply problems or subtle strategic "impurities"?
- petcat 23d agoThe US produces an enormous amount of pharmaceutical testosterone
- Joel_Mckay 22d ago"only 17% of dairy cows in the U.S. are now being treated with the synthetic [bGH/rbST] hormone" It is perfectly safe for US children according to the FDA, and illegal in most other developed countries. =3
- bob1029 23d ago> “Taking testosterone is not going to make you more manly, more strong, or a more robust individual. That’s just not how it works,” It will make you stronger. Perhaps not at certain therapeutic ranges, but there is a reason this would get you kicked out of the Olympic Games.
- nba456_ 23d agoCrazy that a doctor would say taking testosterone would not make you stronger. Remind me to never listen to the American College of Physicians.
- lokar 23d agoIMO he obviously meant boosting someone who was low back into the normal range.
- duskdozer 23d agoIt depends. It may be that more testosterone when you already produce "enough" - which is individual-dependent - won't give much additional strength if you aren't training specifically to take advantage of it. Additionally, hormones are complicated. The body will downregulate its own production when given "too much". I'm aware that bodybuilders have to follow certain treatment regimens and add other drugs to restart the body's production if they stop supplementing it at times.
- jbird99 22d agoYou will still gain size and strength without training, but obviously training produces much better results. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8637535/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8637535/
- Der_Einzige 22d agoYou should see what they say about Male Circumcision (it's great!), water births (bad!), Chiropractors (okay for insurance I guess?), etc Fuck the US medical system and specifically fuck medical ethics researchers who make the american medical system so morally bankrupt.
- jrm4 23d ago"Without explanation" I mean, sure, it would probably be embarrassing to have to say "because this was extremely stupid and nonsensical and entirely due to the weird hangups of the present guy in charge."
- diydsp 23d agoPerhaps the explanation is: to make space for other incoherent self-defeating policies like threatening the Fed that they'll increase tariffs if rates aren't lowered?
- ilaksh 23d agoThey're not weird at all given his worldview. It's Nazism. From his book to his public statements and actions, he consistently expresses this. The only thing he does not do is use the literal language that is not accepted. But the meaning and actions are the same. People are in denial.
- greggsy 23d agoI had no idea this was a thing. It seems to edge us closer to the dystopian ‘super soldier gone wrong’ trope.
- pavel_lishin 23d agoIt seems more like the "middle school penis inspections" joke to me.
- Der_Einzige 22d agoThat's some kind of urban joke on 4chan yet the far more objectively cruel act of mass male circumcision at birth happens daily and hardly anyone bats an eye at it. Why have horror movies when real life is all I need? Unironically!
- xboxnolifes 22d agoPresumably because a lot of people are circumcised and dont care.
- badgersnake 23d agoIf we explained how dumb this was somebody would have to resign, so we’ll just sweep it under the carpet.
- add-sub-mul-div 23d agoStupid ideas is all they have yet they won't even stick with them?
- stevenwoo 23d agoFirst impressions will stick with people so just the announcement of things is seen as positive by supporters who do not seem inclined to peek behind the curtain and do work on following up on what actually happened (or listening to things contrary to dogma) - which tends to get a lot less media coverage because it requires journalists to work instead of regurgitating press releases. A lot of low information voters can be swayed by this. It doesn’t work on people who are paying attention but it’s not meant for them.
- quickthrowman 23d agoWhat’s next, force the troops to drink as much whiskey as the SecDef does on a daily basis? Most of them would die on the first day, after their BAC hits .3% at 3 PM, a double whiskey on the hour every hour hits the liver hard.
- jmpman 23d agoI figured they were just trying to manipulate the elections. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12230349/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12230349/
- taybin 23d agoI’m surprised that reading The Game hasn’t been added to the annual trainings for soldiers and DoD civilians.
- actionfromafar 23d agoBut but ... how will they now win against iranian bears in hand to paw combat?
- Steven420 23d agoHopefully they figured out that they would be effectively castrating their military
- jesse_dot_id 22d agoIt's because it's incredibly stupid.
- K0balt 22d agoSo, was this some kind of trans witch hunt to weed out people who were transitioning? Or was it just a misguided attempt to name and shame men who weren’t “manly” enough? It’s hard to imagine it was actually an ill conceived measure aimed at supporting healthy testosterone levels, but I guess it isn’t impossible. I feel like maybe it was a cartoon inspired measure to create a super army of aggressive super soldiers? It’s got what plants crave? SMH
- krapp 22d ago>So, was this some kind of trans witch hunt to weed out people who were transitioning? Or was it just a misguided attempt to name and shame men who weren’t “manly” enough? Probably both.
- blipvert 22d agoThey realised that gender affirming care is something that they were against?
- jknoepfler 22d agoWhy would it require explanation? It was stupid beyond belief to begin with. It would be like rescinding a policy profiling soldiers using phrenology or waving some scientology wand over them or something. The fact that people think there's anything even worthy of discussion on this is alarming to me.
- xboxnolifes 22d agoAvoiding explanation on removal is the same as avoiding responsibility for enacting.
- ChiperSoft 22d agoI was very surprised the "we need more white babies" people were pushing a policy that lowers sperm count.
- mrobot 22d agothe police told me that breakfast cereals started in Michigan boys homes before the prisons to control testosterone
- fredley 22d agoNot that anyone needs any validation of how dumb this all is/was, but high testosterone levels don't necessarily mean you're going to be a burly muscly macho man. https://youtu.be/1162ouPHH3Q?si=ZAy5vo3loo0EfYbu&t=84 https://youtu.be/1162ouPHH3Q?si=ZAy5vo3loo0EfYbu&t=84
- nabbed 22d agoMight be a temporary rescission, though: 'the Pentagon said that the document, titled “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization,” had been temporarily rescinded on September 3 to allow for updates.'
- ramesh31 22d agoThey never cared about the policy at all. It was just something to get a bump in the Fox News cycle for a day. Leadership knew that, and quietly let it go.