{"id":8901,"date":"2026-07-17T20:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=8901"},"modified":"2026-07-17T20:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:06:47","slug":"jonathan-reiner-discounts-hegseths-testosterone-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=8901","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Reiner Discounts Hegseth&#8217;s Testosterone Push"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Dr. <strong>Jonathan Reiner<\/strong> took aim at Defense Secretary <strong>Pete Hegseth\u2019s<\/strong> Testosterone push for servicemen and women, saying it \u201cmakes no medical sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s <strong>John Berman<\/strong> played video of Hegseth stating that the Pentagon has planned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/pete-hegseth-drops-new-video-promising-testosterone-replacement-therapy-for-us-soldiers\/\">mandatory testosterone testing<\/a> for troops 30 and over.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2026\/07\/16\/hegseth-touts-high-testosterone-military-doctors-question-his-claims\/\">If treatment is recommended<\/a>,\u201d Hegseth said, \u201cIt\u2019s entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy. This initiative, it\u2019s not about artificial enhancement. It\u2019s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, first of all, giving men testosterone can increase muscle mass, but not necessarily strength,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cBut elevated, very elevated levels of testosterone can have significant negative effects: decreasing sperm count, increasing prostate size, shrinking the testicles. So, this is not like just taking a multivitamin, \u2018It will make you feel better.\u2019 There are real consequences for substantially increasing the testosterone levels in people that don\u2019t need it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reiner continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>By the way, it\u2019s not so easy to test testosterone. It has to be done in the morning. It has to be done fasting. And if it\u2019s low, it has to be repeated. And there are a million men in the military. So there\u2019s a big logistic problem in doing this. But, suppose you test low, but you feel great. I think this creates a coercive environment in the military. Are they going to use testosterone levels in promotion decisions? Are they going to use testosterone levels to help figure out if you\u2019re deployable to to a war zone? And let\u2019s say \u2014 and is this going to cause members of the military to perhaps take testosterone so that they don\u2019t measure low so that they don\u2019t have a low testosterone in their medical record? There are a lot of ramifications to doing this, and it just makes no medical sense.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Reiner added, \u201cThis is the second time this year that Secretary Hegseth has announced a medical initiative for the military that makes no sense. The first was removing the mandatory flu vaccine, which was followed quickly after that by a large outbreak. So this just makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clip above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Jonathan Reiner took aim at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s Testosterone push for servicemen and women, saying it \u201cmakes no medical sense.\u201d CNN\u2019s John Berman played video of Hegseth stating that the Pentagon has planned mandatory testosterone testing for troops 30 and over. \u201cIf treatment is recommended,\u201d Hegseth said, \u201cIt\u2019s entirely your choice to receive&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/hegseth.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}