LATE last month the Herald reported on a lobby group of more than 400 doctors, medical researchers and scientists - dubbed Friends of Science in Medicine - pressuring universities to close down alternative medicine degrees, arguing the practices have no scientific basis.

On February 4, for News Review's The Question, several experts expressed their views on the topic. The story was accompanied by an online poll asking readers ''Should universities teach alternative medicine?''

Voting progressed steadily at first but on Tuesday votes began rising from about 125,000 to more than 877,000 by the time voting closed on Thursday. The end result was 70 per cent no, 30 per cent yes.

The number of votes in the poll was about eight times more than the number of online readers of the story, a clear indicator that the poll had been gamed. Fairfax technical staff said the poll logs all but confirmed that the voting had been manipulated.

All Fairfax polls state that they are ''not scientific'' but on controversial issues such as alternative medicine and internet censorship, they are held up by interest groups as a rock-solid gauge of public opinion.