Mom Convinced Daughter with Cancer to Reject Chemotherapy, Family Claims. She Died 7 Months Later

The sons of prominent anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani have blamed the former nurse for the death of their sister, her daughter Paloma, who died in 2024 after refusing chemotherapy for cancer.

In a Monday, June 23, interview with the BBC news program Panorama, Gabriel and Sebastian Shemirani said that while growing up in the English town of Uckfield, their mother believed that the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was an "inside job" and that the Sandy Hook school shooting was staged.

When their mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, the ordeal fortified her anti-science views, they said — and while Kate underwent surgery to remove the cancer, she credited her recovery to juices and coffee enemas. 

Although Gabriel and Sebastian stopped speaking with their mother after their parents split, Paloma — Gabriel’s twin — remained in contact with her. As Sebastian told the BBC, “Paloma's strategy was to appease, to be sweet, to try and win the love that she hadn't been granted earlier.”

When Paloma was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in late 2023, she was given a positive prognosis — 80% chance of survival — with chemotherapy; without it, the BBC reports, the cancer could be fatal.

However, BBC reported that once Kate visited her daughter in the hospital, Paloma decided against chemotherapy, opting to treat her cancer with Gerson therapy, which involves juices, supplements, and enemas, and is not an approved treatment for cancer, the National Cancer Institute notes. No studies have been done that support the belief that it's an effective cancer treatment, according to the NCI.

Paloma's mother supervised her care, the BBC reports; in July 2024, she was put on life support following a heart attack. A few days later, Paloma had died at 23 years old.

Kate responded to Paloma’s death by proclaiming in posts on X that she had been murdered and that her death had been covered up. “Medicine is a lie and what we once believed to be healthcare is now a homicide service,” she wrote, later calling her daughter’s death “one big massive manslaughter case.”

Sebastian placed the blame for his sister's death squarely on his mother, and told the BBC, “My sister has passed away as a direct consequence of my mum’s actions and beliefs. And I don’t want anyone else to go through the same pain or loss that I have.”

An inquest — the term for a legal investigation in the U.K. — into Paloma’s death is scheduled for next month.

Responding to an X user who claimed the BBC fabricated their claims about Paloma's death, Kate wrote, “Let them all fall on their swords.  My silence has been for a reason our silence as her parents has been for a reason. The documents do not lie and when we ready we will show the world because it affects everyone what is being done.”