And now, is baseball serious?

The doping suspension of Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez on Thursday has revived a debate that Major League Baseball undoubtedly hoped it had put behind it: Is the sport’s anti-drug program finally harsh enough to deter potential dopers, or is it still too lenient?

Baseball “has come a long way in the last seven years,” said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a New York sports medicine expert and a key official of the World Anti-Doping Agency. “But it’s still not where it needs to be.”

Yet Howard Jacobs, a leading defense attorney for athletes accused of doping offenses, said that “it’s fair to say” the Ramirez case signals that Major League Baseball is serious about stamping out doping. “He’s as big a player as there is.”

Many details of the Ramirez case were still unclear Thursday night. Sources confirmed to The Times that the drug in question is human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, which can be used to boost testosterone levels. But although Ramirez, in a statement issued through the players union, the Major League Baseball Players Assn., said it was a medication prescribed by a physician for a “personal health issue,” the list of its legitimate therapeutic uses by an adult male is short.

“In the legitimate world, HCG is used for infertility [by women] or for delayed puberty,” Wadler said. “But for a man of his age [36] with a testosterone deficiency, there are much better drugs.”

It’s unclear why, if it was legitimately prescribed, Ramirez did not obtain a therapeutic-use exemption for taking the substance. Baseball’s anti-drug policy, like other sports doping regulations, provide for waivers for medically necessary but otherwise banned substances.

In 2008, the league reported, three such waivers were issued in cases of hypogonadism, a diagnosis that would encompass low testosterone production.

Anti-doping experts say bodybuilders and other athletes often use HCG after cycles of steroid use to restore the testosterone-producing capabilities of the testicles, which is suppressed by steroid abuse.

“HCG helps them to jump-start their own . . . production of testosterone again,” said Victor Conte, the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. Conte pleaded guilty in 2005 to distributing steroids to elite athletes, allegedly including sluggers Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.

Ramirez’s punishment is the most stringent handed out under Major League Baseball’s drug program to an active player of his stature -- a 12-time All-Star with convincing Hall of Fame credentials, including 533 home runs and a lifetime batting average of .315.

Because the drug policy negotiated by the league owners and the players union requires drug suspensions to be unpaid, Ramirez will forgo about $7.7 million, or nearly a third of his $25-million salary this year.

That’s a big number and a long period of idleness for a top player. But the measures may not be enough to quell sniping from international anti-doping authorities who argue that baseball’s anti-doping policy still isn’t sufficiently stringent.

The World Anti-Doping Agency, known as WADA, has consistently criticized the baseball program for falling short of the agency’s standards. WADA regulations cover Olympic and other international sports and some professional leagues, but not the North American pro leagues in baseball, football, basketball or hockey.

The conflict dates to 2003, when the outspoken Richard Pound, then WADA’s president, called baseball’s anti-drug policy “a complete and utter joke.” At the time, the policy provided for a maximum one-year suspension. Baseball officials shot back that Pound was trying to establish his agency as a doping-enforcement monopoly.

Baseball did tighten its program several times in subsequent years, notably after the 2007 release of a report on doping the league commissioned from former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell. Mitchell called for an independent anti-doping program and year-round unannounced tests, which experts say are the most effective means of catching offenders.

The league expanded its random testing, but kept it within limits. The agreement calls for only one unannounced test for every player each year. From this season through 2011, a total of only 375 of those tests may be conducted during the off-season -- arguably giving players a loophole to build themselves up illicitly before reporting to spring training, when all are tested.

Athletes under WADA jurisdiction can be given an unannounced test at almost any time and any place.

According to Major League Baseball’s policy, a player’s first flunked test for a performance-enhancing substance is punishable by a 50-game suspension. A second offense results in a 100-game suspension, and a third means permanent suspension from the major or minor leagues. By contrast, WADA rules call for a two-year suspension for a first offense and permanent suspension for a subsequent violation.

Wadler, the sports medicine expert, said the discrepancy in punishment showed that baseball’s anti-doping efforts, like those of other pro sports, are still hampered by consideration of profit and loss.

“The pro leagues can’t see their superstars being sanctioned for two years,” he said in an interview last year. “But if you’re really serious about getting doping out of your sport, you’ve got to bite the bullet.”

WADA also has been critical of baseball’s refusal to test athletes for human growth hormone. No urine test exists for HGH, and baseball officials say that WADA’s blood test for the substance is unreliable.

“That’s like putting a sign over your door saying, ‘HGH allowed here,’ ” Wadler said.

WADA also criticizes baseball for keeping its anti-doping programs in-house, rather than farming them out to an independent agency, such as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, a WADA affiliate. The league’s program is run by a joint management-player committee and an independent administrator, although both sides have the right to demand the administrator’s removal for undefined actions “inconsistent with the program.”

As for the league’s anti-doping authorities, there was no celebration over the Ramirez suspension, but there was satisfaction in knowing the rules were being enforced, said one official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

“It can be like speeding,” the official said. “You know you’re not supposed to do it, but you do, and sometimes get caught. It’s human nature. And like they say, even if you have laws that aren’t supposed to be broken, you still need police.”

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Times staff writers Lance Pugmire and Bill Shaikin contributed to this report.