Our sister died due to our mum’s most cancers conspiracy theories, say brothers

Gabriel and Sebastian Shemirani watched with concern as their mom Kate rose to notoriety in the course of the pandemic, finally getting struck off as a nurse for selling misinformation about Covid-19.

Then, their sister Paloma was identified with most cancers. Medical doctors instructed her she had a excessive likelihood of survival with chemotherapy. However in 2024, seven months later, she died – having refused the therapy.

The brothers blame their mom’s anti-medicine conspiracy theories for Paloma’s dying at 23 – as most cancers docs inform BBC Panorama these beliefs have gotten extra mainstream.

Kate Shemirani has not responded on to the allegations we raised, however she has publicly blamed the NHS for her daughter’s dying.

She and her ex-husband, Paloma’s father Faramarz Shemirani, wrote to us saying they’ve proof “Paloma died on account of medical interventions given with out confirmed analysis or lawful consent”. The BBC has seen no proof to substantiate these claims.

Paloma’s elder brother Sebastian says: “My sister has handed away as a direct consequence of my mum’s actions and beliefs and I do not need anybody else to undergo the identical ache or loss that I’ve.”

Each brothers say they contacted me about Paloma within the hope they may forestall different deaths, they usually consider social media firms ought to take stronger motion towards medical misinformation – which the BBC has discovered is being actively really helpful on a number of main websites.

“I wasn’t capable of cease my sister from dying. However it will imply the world to me if I may make it that she wasn’t simply one other in an extended line of people who die on this approach,” says Gabriel.

For Panorama and BBC Radio 4’s Marianna in Conspiracyland 2 podcast, I pieced collectively how this younger Cambridge graduate got here to refuse therapy which may have saved her life, following a web based path and interviewing folks near her.

And I discovered that conspiracy idea influencers similar to Kate Shemirani are sharing once-fringe anti-medicine views to hundreds of thousands – which may go away weak folks liable to critical hurt.

It’s getting tougher to struggle medical misinformation due to the prominence of figures similar to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who’ve beforehand expressed unscientific views – says oncologist Dr Tom Roques, vice-president of the Royal Faculty of Radiologists, which additionally represents most cancers specialists.

When you have got a US well being and human companies secretary “who actively promotes views just like the hyperlink between vaccines and autism which have been debunked years in the past, then that makes it a lot simpler for different folks to hawk false views,” he says.

“I believe the danger is that extra dangerous different remedies are getting extra mainstream. Which will do folks extra energetic hurt.”

Since turning into Well being and Human Providers Secretary, Mr Kennedy has stated he isn’t anti-vaccine, and that he simply helps extra security assessments.

Paloma and her twin Gabriel, together with Sebastian and their youthful sister, grew up within the small Sussex city of Uckfield, the place they have been uncovered to conspiracy theories at residence, her brothers say.

The “soundtrack” to their college runs, Gabriel says, was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaking about how the Sandy Hook college capturing was staged or 9/11 “was an inside job”.

The brothers say it was their father who first acquired into conspiracy theories, which piqued their mom’s curiosity. The youngsters absorbed outlandish concepts, together with that the Royal Household have been shape-shifting lizards, says Gabriel. “As a younger baby, you belief your dad and mom. So that you see that as a reality,” he says.

Sebastian believes their mum used her concepts as a approach of controlling them. On one event, Kate Shemirani determined wi-fi was harmful and switched it off at residence, he says, ignoring his pleas that he needed to submit GCSE coursework. “That solely fed the enjoyment that she had for utilizing her irrational system of beliefs to manage me,” he says.

In response to her sons, Kate Shemirani’s anti-medicine views have been accelerated in 2012, when she was identified with breast most cancers.

Although she had the tumour eliminated by surgical procedure, she credit different therapies for her restoration and says on-line how she used a programme together with juices and low enemas to turn out to be “cancer-free”. She does not use the phrase cured.

Paloma absorbed a few of these concepts, says Chantelle, one in every of her finest associates from college. “Paloma spoke about her mum curing herself, and he or she believed sunscreen may trigger most cancers. I keep in mind she used to get burned so badly at college,” she says.

After their dad and mom cut up up, Gabriel and Sebastian grew to become estranged from their mom. However Paloma maintained contact along with her, even when she went off to check at Cambridge in 2019.

“Paloma’s technique was to appease, to be candy, to try to win the love that she hadn’t been granted earlier,” says Sebastian.

Messages Paloma shared along with her then-boyfriend Ander Harris – and which he has shared with the BBC – reveal a relationship along with her mom that had moments of affection and care, but additionally occasions when Paloma noticed it as poisonous and abusive.

Over Christmas 2022, she instructed Ander her mom was blaming her for different youngsters not coming residence for Christmas. “I am so so so sick of being abused”, she wrote, suggesting with an expletive that this therapy occurred on a regular basis.

Her mom stored coming into her room and “being imply”, Paloma stated in a single message, including that her mom had hit her. Paloma left for a pal’s home. She later shared her parting message to her mom with Ander, saying it was “the final straw. You damage me each time I allow you to in and I by no means ever will once more. I am past damage”.

Again at college, Paloma appeared to be shifting away from her mom’s beliefs at occasions. Chantelle says she started consuming meat and utilizing fluoride toothpaste. However each Chantelle and Ander say she remained sceptical in regards to the Covid-19 vaccine and refused to have it.

In late 2023, not lengthy after graduating, Paloma started to have chest pains and respiratory difficulties. She went to the hospital.

Medical doctors suspected a tumour, however Ander says he and Paloma, “one of many smartest folks I’ve ever met”, have been hopeful at first that it will prove to not be malignant. Paloma made mild of it, nicknaming the tumour “Maria the Lung Mass”, he says.

However on 22 December, Paloma and Ander went to Maidstone Hospital the place docs gave her the analysis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Untreated, the sort of most cancers could be deadly, however docs instructed Paloma she had an 80% likelihood of restoration if she had chemotherapy.

Paloma instructed her mom the information. Ander says Paloma nonetheless wished her help, despite the fact that their relationship had not too long ago been by a tough patch. Kate Shemirani stated she would come to the hospital. Paloma was apprehensive about seeing her, although, and spoke to medical employees about her considerations, her then-boyfriend says.

Proof seen by the BBC suggests Paloma’s pondering may have been influenced by her mom in the course of the two days she was an inpatient at Maidstone Hospital.

Kate Shemirani texted Ander to say: “TELL PALOMA NOT TO SIGN [OR] VERBALLY CONSENT TO CHEMO OR ANY TREATMENT.”

Ander and his personal mom, who was additionally there, raised considerations with hospital employees about Kate Shemirani’s beliefs and her relationship with Paloma.

Medical employees mentioned safeguarding considerations about Paloma amongst themselves and wrote that they’d “a priority concerning parental affect” on her. However in addition they thought that she did have the capability to make her personal selections.

For recommendation, Paloma reached out to a former associate of Kate Shemirani known as Patrick Vickers. Paloma had an excellent relationship with him, Ander says. He’s additionally an alternate well being practitioner.

When Paloma requested him in regards to the “80% likelihood of treatment” the docs had stated chemotherapy would provide, Mr Vickers stated that was “exaggerated”. He inspired her to start out Gerson remedy and to possibly contemplate chemotherapy if her signs didn’t enhance after six weeks.

Mr Vickers instructed us that any “assertions that I performed a job in her [Paloma’s] dying are legally inaccurate”. He additionally shared paperwork with the BBC in help of Gerson remedy.

Gerson remedy includes a strict plant-based food regimen, together with juices, dietary supplements and low enemas. Some folks declare – with out scientific proof – it may be used to deal with a spread of cancers.

Paloma was apprehensive in regards to the unfavorable unwanted side effects of chemotherapy, Ander tells me, as it could possibly trigger fatigue, illness, hair loss and have an effect on fertility. Nursing employees spoke to Paloma about egg-freezing and wigs when she was identified.

However the charity Most cancers Analysis UK says Gerson remedy also can have extreme unwanted side effects, together with dehydration, irritation of the bowel, and coronary heart and lung issues.

In some unspecified time in the future in the course of the two days in hospital, Ander says, Paloma made up her thoughts. She determined to not pursue chemotherapy – at the least in the intervening time – and would attempt Gerson remedy to start out with.

On 23 December, Kate Shemirani despatched Ander a voice notice giving him directions to drive Paloma to her home, saying she had organized docs for her. She recommended Paloma’s time with a pal she wished to see must be restricted on Christmas Day – and stated within the message that they may “see her for possibly half an hour or no matter right here, or they’ll do it on FaceTime”.

Ander says he felt he couldn’t argue. Paloma “was in struggle or flight and actually simply wished to be taken care of and, you already know, not should make the laborious selections”, he says. “Her mum type of swooped in and took benefit of that.”

Kate Shemirani promotes concepts which she really helpful to her daughter to a wider public on-line. A former NHS nurse within the Nineteen Eighties, she calls herself “the Pure Nurse” on social media.

On her web site, she sells apricot kernels for his or her “potential well being advantages” together with dietary dietary supplements, and gives info and recommendation.

She expenses about £70 for an annual membership to her web site, and expenses sufferers – together with these with most cancers – £195 for a session and personalised 12-week programme.

On social media she posts movies selling her merchandise and generally criticises “ill-informed folks” for treating most cancers with chemotherapy, or “pumping mustard gasoline into their veins” as she characterises it.

When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, Kate Shemirani was one in every of many conspiracy idea influencers who discovered a wider viewers. Her beliefs appeared to have advanced from different well being concepts to sprawling anti-establishment conspiracy theories.

She promoted the false concepts that the pandemic was a hoax, that vaccines have been a part of a plan to kill a lot of folks, and that docs and nurses must be punished for his or her half in all of it.

In 2021 a Nursing and Midwifery Council panel decided that Kate Shemirani must be struck off as a nurse for selling misinformation in regards to the pandemic. A number of social media firms additionally suspended her profiles for selling misinformation. “She went into obscurity,” says Sebastian.

However as soon as Elon Musk purchased X in 2022, a lot of conspiracy idea accounts have been reinstated, together with Kate Shemirani’s. She was additionally reinstated on Fb and he or she joined TikTok.

Her viewers has grown once more – up to now six months she has had her content material considered greater than 4 and a half million occasions throughout the most important social media websites. I’ve discovered dozens of feedback on X the place she encourages folks to get in contact, together with these with most cancers.

TikTok says it has now banned Kate Shemirani’s account for violating medical misinformation insurance policies. In response to Meta, Instagram and Fb don’t permit dangerous medical misinformation. X didn’t reply.

Paloma continued on Gerson remedy. A few of her associates observed how she grew to become increasingly more unwell.

On one video name, Chantelle says, Paloma stated she had a brand new lump in her armpit, and her mom had instructed her it meant that the most cancers was going out of her physique. “I knew she was actually struggling,” she says, including that Paloma instructed her she had misplaced management of her bodily features.

However she says Paloma additionally stated she felt pressured by docs and associates to rethink her choice to pursue different therapies on their very own. Chantelle says she didn’t agree with the choice remedy both, however wished to be there for her pal.

Paloma had talked about different folks making an attempt to alter her thoughts and mentioned “chopping them off”, Chantelle provides. “I assumed I do not wish to be minimize off particularly when she’s struggling like this.”

Over the months that they spoke on the cellphone, Chantelle says she observed that Kate Shemirani was “taking superb care of Paloma”. However she doesn’t assume Paloma would have made the identical selections with out her mom.

“I do not assume her ideology was robust sufficient to make these selections is my private perception. Folks have completely different opinions about this stuff, however I believe her mum performed a large, large position into it,” Chantelle says.

In March 2024, Paloma ended her relationship with Ander. Different family and friends felt that Kate Shemirani was isolating Paloma from them.

Gabriel says he requested to fulfill Paloma not lengthy after she was identified however his sister stated she couldn’t exit due to the “unhealthy air”. Their mom had satisfied her that the “damp air” would trigger her to turn out to be extra ailing, he says.

Sebastian and Gabriel have been so apprehensive that Gabriel began a authorized case. He was not arguing Paloma didn’t have capability, however he wished an evaluation of the suitable medical therapy for her.

However occasions overtook them and the case ended and not using a conclusion in July – as a result of Paloma had died.

Gabriel solely realized of his sister’s dying a number of days afterwards, in a cellphone name from their lawyer. He needed to break the information to his brother. “It is like being burnt alive and you are feeling the searing ache each time it comes out of your mouth,” Gabriel says.

Sebastian says he blamed himself. “I have not come to phrases with that in any respect,” he says.

When Ander heard, “I broke,” he says. “I used to be simply, like, screaming and crying on the high of my lungs.”

Paloma had suffered a coronary heart assault attributable to her tumour. She was taken to hospital, however after a number of days, her life help was switched off.

An inquest is because of start subsequent month to determine the circumstances surrounding Paloma’s dying.

Kate Shemirani has promoted a spread of unproven theories on social media and fringe political podcasts about how she believes Paloma was murdered by medical employees – and that this was adopted by a canopy up. The BBC has not seen proof to help these claims.

Paloma’s dying was devastating for her household and family members. However for Sebastian and Gabriel, it’s also a warning of the potential penalties for individuals who consider anti-medicine conspiracy theories like their mom’s.