Zavaroni's fame began at age 9 on Opportunity Knocks, a nationally televised talent show, according to ABC. She sang for presidents, queens, and luminaries, but her meteoric rise soon came to a screeching halt.
The genesis of her anorexia is a familiar story. When she started to develop, her handlers commented on her weight, and by age 13, according to ABC, she was anorexic.
According to the report, Zavaroni had a procedure called a leukotomy, an operation in which connective fibers are cut, severing the connection between two different areas of the brain. She died four weeks later from an infection brought on by the procedure.
ABC cites Paul Hamburg, associate director of the Eating Disorders Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, who notes that there is no clinical data showing that leukotomy is an effective treatment for anorexia. Then why did Zavaroni undergo the procedure?
The report suggests she was so desperate for a cure that she was willing to try anything. When people get desperate, they get reckless. And then bad things usually happen.
That point was graphically demonstrated on a recent episode of the ABC television show "20/20". The program's lead segment reported on a small group of twentysomethings who wanted to have holes drilled in their heads, a procedure called trephination.
Tulane University's John Verano explained that trephination is "probably the oldest form of surgery" with a history stretching back to the Incas who used it to cut away parts of a damaged skull. But the young people on this program were all physically healthy. And they planned to perform the operation on themselves without any medical supervision.
Some wanted to "increase their consciousness." Others were searching for a cure for life's problems. "Mary" was desperately seeking relief from suicidal depression.
The group had rented a farmhouse in a remote location where the procedure was to be performed. The organizer of this insane event was Peter Halvorson, who had drilled a hole in his head in 1972, and whose website, according to "20/20," has received tens of thousands of hits.
In the farmhouse basement, "Heather" began to trephan herself using what "20/20" correspondent Chris Cuomo described as "an overgrown corkscrew." But the online transcript does not capture the horror of what happened next.
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