The NFL began its testing program for human growth hormone this week, some three years after the collective bargaining agreement that called for it was agreed to by both the league owners and the players’ union. So why did it take so long? Mostly to hammer out the details, including how and when the test would be conducted, but also how the appeals process would work in the event that a player wanted to challenge a positive test.

The more we learn about the Cung Le situation following his positive test for elevated growth hormone following UFC Fight Night 48 in Macau, the more it seems like that’s an example the UFC could learn from.

First, the facts. On Aug. 23, Le suffered a fourth-round TKO loss at the hands of fellow UFC middleweight Michael Bisping at an event in Macau. With no athletic commission in Macau, a special administrative region of China, the UFC acted as its own regulator, which meant conducting its own drug tests. After a photo of the 42-year-old Le looking suspiciously muscular showed up on the Internet before the bout, the UFC also announced that it would conduct enhanced drug testing for this fight, including both blood and urine samples, which would be collected and analyzed on the company dime.

Sounds good so far, but after the UFC announced that Le’s post-fight blood test showed elevated levels of growth hormone – for which the UFC leveled a suspension of nine months, which was then amended to a year – his camp called those tests into question. And, the more you look into it, the more it seems like there’s plenty to question here.

Or, as anti-doping scientist Dr. Don Catlin put it to MMAjunkie: “I think (the test done by the UFC) is useless. I wouldn’t pay any attention to it all.”

The problem, according to Catlin, is that testing for HGH is a tricky business. In order to do it accurately, you need to do it at a lab approved by and operating under the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The UFC, instead, went through the Hong Kong Functional Medical Testing Center, which is closer to an occupational drug testing lab than anything, say, the Olympics might use to analyze an athlete’s blood sample.

If you want to know whether your teenager is smoking pot, or your employee is high on cocaine at work? Sure, the Hong Kong Functional Medical Testing Center might work just fine. But for HGH? They simply don’t have the necessary materials, according to Catlin, who is widely regarded as one of the fathers of modern drug testing for his work at the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab in Los Angeles.

“The only people who can do HGH testing properly are those who are running WADA labs, and have the reagents supplied by WADA,” Catlin said. “That works. That’s what any sport testing for HGH, that’s legitimate and is useful, will do. But you have to be a WADA-accredited lab to get the reagents. They’re hard to come by.”

This is one of several points that’s been raised by Le’s manager, Gary Ibarra, in the wake of the test. Another is when the sample was collected, and what the lab did with it after testing.

According to Ibarra, a phlebotomist hired by the UFC took a blood sample from Le mere minutes after he’d exited the cage. That in itself is problematic since HGH levels fluctuate, with some research suggesting that HGH levels might “increase tenfold during prolonged moderate exercise,” according to the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“The level that Cung tested was high, but it was high for a resting level,” Ibarra said.

Then there’s the testing process itself. Instead of sending Le’s sample to the WADA-accredited lab in Beijing, the UFC opted for the non-accredited lab in Hong Kong. Once Ibarra heard that the test resulted in a positive, he said, he asked the UFC whether the lab had done an IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) test, which is often used to detect HGH use. The UFC replied that the lab had not done that test, Ibarra said. When he asked that the IGF-1 test be used, he said the UFC told him that the lab couldn’t do the test because it had destroyed the sample.

How long a lab is required to keep a blood sample around can vary, according to Catlin, “but they should keep positives for at least six months.” Other labs sometimes use a minimum of three months. Since Le’s fight occurred not quite two months ago, it’s just one more reason to question the process, Ibarra said.

But at least part of the challenge in contesting this result is the fact that the UFC did this testing on its own, according to its own protocols. If a fighter fails a drug test administered by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, there’s a clear appeals process. That fighter will get his day in court, so to speak, where he may present his evidence and make his case. In recent months, we’ve seen that the UFC will even be good enough to broadcast those proceedings on its UFC Fight Pass streaming service. But what happens when the regulatory body is the UFC itself? How do fighters challenge the findings of their employer?

That’s the question we don’t have an answer to. Repeated requests for information on that topic went ignored by the UFC this week. Ibarra said he hasn’t heard from the UFC whether there is any sort of appeals process, or “whether this instance will cause them to put one in place.”

“I’m not sure how far ahead they were thinking when they decided to implement their own drug testing,” Ibarra said. ” … If I’m speculating, I think the UFC saw the test, saw the results, said, ‘We caught him,’ and in a rush to show everybody that they’re tough on drugs, they did not make sure that it was accurate and correct.”

And that’s a problem not just for Le, but for the UFC’s prospects as a self-regulator. As the world’s leading MMA promotion spreads out into new international markets, it frequently finds itself in this situation, acting as its own watchdog and conducting its own drug tests. The company has also announced plans to conduct further drug testing of fighters on its roster in 2015, which is encouraging news to those worried about the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs within the sport.

But if fighters are going to have their reputations and livelihoods on the line each time the UFC drug tests them, don’t they deserve to know where and how those tests will be analyzed, and what the process is for challenging the findings in the event of a positive test? The NFL seems to think so. Then again, the NFL also uses WADA-accredited labs, such as the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, to conduct its testing.

The other thing that makes Le’s fight a bit of an uphill climb is the power of public perception. That photo of him looking strangely ripped in his early 40s? The one that he attributed to good lighting and a hard workout? That raised suspicions. Then the UFC passed along this news about a failed drug test, and even Le’s manager had to wonder, he said.

“I asked him straight up,” Ibarra said. “I said, ‘Did you do this?’ He said no. And he’s not in a situation where he has to lie to me or can’t tell me the truth. He’s my client, I’m bound to him, and what he tells me is confidential. He can tell me the truth. Now, obviously that doesn’t mean anything, because he could lie to me. But I didn’t base my decision just on his word.”

The more he dug into the testing procedures, Ibarra said, the more doubts he had. According to Ibarra, all of Le’s other tests were clear.

“No steroids, no stimulants, no masking agents, and his testosterone was at a completely normal level,” Ibarra said. “The only test that Cung didn’t pass, apparently, is the eye test.”

Well, that and the HGH test, but there would appear to be at least enough doubts about that to warrant further examination. The question is whether the UFC is willing to allow for such an examination, or wiling to hold itself to the same standard as the athletic commission in its home state of Nevada.

Whatever they think of Le’s guilt or innocence, it’s a question that ought to matter a great deal to the other fighters who have been and will be subject to the UFC’s testing procedures. And at least so far, it’s a question without an answer.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 48, check out the UFC Events section of the site.