When word spread last June that Atlanta surgeon William Logan Jr. and pathologist Kenneth Alonso had found a promising new treatment for AIDS patients, hopes soared, lights flashed, and a media circus rolled into town. TV cameras descended on the operating room to record the miraculous recovery of a patient with AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma, whom the doctors had treated by heating his blood to kill the AIDS virus.

Last week the hope came crashing to the ground. After studying the cases, federal investigators declared the treatment useless and recommended against further human experimentation. They attributed one patient's remarkable recovery to misdiagnosis: he did not have Kaposi's sarcoma to begin with. Dr. Alonso called the report "absurd," and plans to continue his study, possibly in Latin America or Europe.