The Pentagon has temporarily rescinded the mandatory testosterone-screening guidance it issued just a day earlier, removing the document from its website while saying interim guidance remains in effect.
Posted Wednesday by the Defense Health Agency, the clinical guidance had made a testosterone blood test a required part of the annual health assessment for service members. But by Thursday, the memo and an accompanying statement from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had been taken down. Links to both the Pentagon and Defense Health Agency websites returned a “Page Not Found” message.
With 2.1 million troops my estimate is 5808 testosterone blood tests need to be processed per day - and they aren’t like pathogen screenings where you can batch by mixing blood from 1000 people and run one lab test, then binary search if positive. Every person needs individualised metrics
That’s probably 100 full time staff to draw the bloods alone assuming they can do 60 per day working 7 days a week. Unless bloods are already a part of the annual check?
Troops already get blood drawn every two years, specifically for HIV screening but for general health purposes and tracking as well.
I’m guessing blood draw is already part of the annual checks, but the testing is where it’s going to be a problem.