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‘My mum’s cancer conspiracy theories killed my sister’ | LBC
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Jul 11, 2025
An inquest is due to open in July to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of Paloma Shemirani, who died aged 23 in 2024, several months after her diagnosis with cancer. Her brother, Gabriel, says their mother and conspiracy theorist, Kate Shemirani, is to blame. Speaking to Ben Kentish on LBC, Gabriel claims Kate Shemirani 'coerced' Paloma into rejecting chemotherapy, which doctors said had a good chance of saving her life. Kate Shemirani has a substantial following on social media, where she shares anti-vaccine and anti-medicine content and advocates for the use of 'natural medicine' including 'IV nutrient therapy' and supplements to cure disease. Her videos, some of which attracted millions of views, were recently banned by TikTok. Gabriel and his brother Sebastian are calling for social media companies to take stronger action to combat the spread of medical misinformation on their platforms. “I wasn’t able to stop my sister from dying. But it would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn’t just another in a long line of people that die in this way,” Gabriel said. Kate Shemirani and her husband Faramarz have stood by their views, claiming that “Paloma died as a result of medical interventions”. The brothers believe their mother's conspiracist views began in their childhood when they listened to recordings that claimed terror attacks in the US were staged. They say her anti-medicine views were strengthened in 2012 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her tumour was removed through surgery, but Kate Shemirani credited alternative therapies for her recovery. On social media, she attributed her recovery from cancer to juices and coffee enemas.
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0:00
Paloma Shemirani was a normal 23-year-old woman
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She'd just graduated from the University of Cambridge. She had her whole life ahead of her
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But in December 2023, Paloma was diagnosed with cancer. She was diagnosed specifically with non-Hodgkin lymphoma
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A huge blow, as any cancer diagnosis is, but the prognosis was good
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She was young, she was healthy, the cancer was treatable. With the right treatment, she had a very, very high chance of surviving
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but Paloma didn't get the right treatment in fact she didn't get any sort of treatment at all
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because her mother Kate a famous conspiracy theorist a famous anti-vaxxer refused to let
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her have cancer treatment of the sort that you and I would know chemotherapy radiotherapy and so on
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instead she advocated a series of alternative treatments that of course because they're
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completely unproven, did nothing. Paloma went on to die as a result of that cancer and now
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her two brothers are campaigning for justice for her and for accountability for her mum
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One of them is Gabriel Chemerani, twin brother of Paloma, who died after, as I say, her mother Kate
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influenced her and ordered her really to refuse cancer treatment. Delighted to say Gabriel joins
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now to talk about what is, Gabriel, I don't know if you heard me say it before the news
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one of the worst stories I've read in a very, very long time. And I'm so sorry, firstly
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for what you and your brother have had to go through. Let's talk first, if we could
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a bit more about your mum. Were the conspiracy theories that she's now become quite famous for
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and the sort of fantasies that she promotes, were they always part of your life growing up
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I mean, so conspiracy theories were always part of our life growing up in the sense that our dad
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was always into the sort of more mainstream 9-11 conspiracy theories. I think with my mother, she was always quite a narcissist
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and quite a paranoid individual. So for her, it was more finding an outlet and a means to exercise that
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and she found that in conspiracy theories, you know, especially around sort of 2012, because she was diagnosed with cancer herself
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had conventional treatment, which cured her, and then she followed it with alternative treatments
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because she wanted to model herself, I believe, as a Bell Gibson or a Chesa Innskopf type
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because she craved that notability and that image that they had. And from that point onwards
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so from the age of being 11 or 12, it definitely coloured how she controlled our diet
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or what we were allowed to eat, whether we were allowed to drink tap water or not. So yeah, I would say that most of our childhood
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I mean all of our childhood was coloured by conspiracy theories but from the age of 11 onwards it was extraordinarily coloured by medically based conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories against the medical establishment and this real intense pressure to reject any kind of rational medical interventions
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So when your twin Paloma was diagnosed with cancer your mum thought the doctors that were trying to treat and help Paloma were actually trying to kill her
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It's a difficult one, working out what Kay actually thinks and whether she's leveraging it to gain power and control
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She had a very, very, you know, obviously Kay's not here to respond to allegations
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but a very turbulent relationship, if we can put it that way, with my sister
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And I think in some parts she wanted, I don't know whether she believed
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or she even thought about it that much as to whether she about what a dog wanting to do with my sister I just think she saw it as an opportunity to gain control over my sister And also again market her as this like Belle Gibson type and this sort of like
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this opportunity for notoriety that Kay desired. I mean, she definitely led Paloma to believe
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that she thought the doctors were going to kill her. Do you blame her for your sister's death
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for your twin's death? My mother? Yeah. Yes. I mean, definitely. Well, I'm a shadow of a doubt
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But if it wasn't for her, then Paloma would still be with us today? If it wasn't for my mother's influence
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if it wasn't for my mother's coercion of my sister away from conventional treatments
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I have no doubt that my sister would still be here. With chemotherapy, she had an 83% survival rate after five years
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for her particular cancer. and so yeah I think we could say with a lot of confidence that it's very likely that my sister
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would still be here and she did to be clear she didn't have any chemotherapy because your mum
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basically prevented her no chemotherapy whatsoever my mum pressured her to discharge herself
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and from that point onwards didn't let her have any interactions with you know doctors who would
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request an x or you know for doctors suggesting x-rays or any kind of um any kind of other you
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know other scans or other um you know anything anything else we could learn more about her
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condition um so cut her off completely from conventional medical practitioners gabriel what went through your mind and perhaps that of your brother when you found out what was
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happening in relation to paloma and her illness and the lack of treatment what i think yeah so i
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So what went through my mind is, so I heard it from her boyfriend
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two days after she'd be discharged. And it just immediately, it had gone in my head from
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right, my sister has a treatable cancer, it's going to be a scary few months, but it's likely she'll survive
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Oh, God, my sister's going to die imminently if we don't do something. I think for me, that's why it immediately spurred me into action
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spurred me into action, making a report to social services, and spur me into the action and eventually, you know
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bringing a case to the High Court. And just so, we'll come on to that in a minute
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but just during that period, presumably you and your brother are urging Paloma to ignore your mum
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and to get the treatment that she needed. And what was she saying in response
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So she'd... Kay pressured my sister to come to... She'd said to her, like, you know
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move out your flat for a bit and stay with me for six weeks and I'll teach you how to do this therapy
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um as k did that because it meant she could leverage a lot of control over my sister and
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also who she who couldn't couldn't see her so obviously me and my brother were voicing our
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concerns to my sister and you know we were voicing them clearly and loudly um but my mom took this
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approach of essentially you know convincing my sister and saying you know block any voice that
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doesn't agree and she also stopped um me and my brother from visiting the house so i wasn't able
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to see my sister for the final seven months of her life because my mom uh didn't allow didn't allow
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way and eventually you know got my sister to block me um so i wasn't able to communicate with her
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that's so tough gabriel so you didn't and you spoke to her but you weren't able to physically
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see her during that time at all yeah i wasn't able to physically see her during that time at all
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and the sort of alternative therapies that your mum was was insisting were better treatments and
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chemotherapy what sort of things was she sort of proposing well something it's a point my brother
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actually made to me today and we both agree we in a weird way we lament that they're referred to as
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therapies, because these alternatives, adding therapy to it almost gives it a legitimacy
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There no science behind these And it essentially like we might as well just call it alternative voodoo because you know what do these involve They involve you know juicing you know taking you know sometimes taking medications for like you know off effects
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And, you know, more dangerously, your sort of coffee enemas or, you know
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the apricot kernels, supplements that can be quite dangerous, especially taken without the advice of a doctor
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um and as you rightly say that have absolutely no scientific basis at all exactly so it's you know
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if anything we should more just refer to it as voodoo and folk men you know voodoo and folk
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treatments because that's essentially what they are it's notable that your mum when she herself
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got cancer did have conventional treatment exactly a mastectomy as i understand it yes exactly so
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she had a double mastectomy um which i actually um i'm a maths and economic student so i actually
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looked into the statistics of it um and someone had done a video on my mother saying that you know
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with her type of cancer with a mistake double mastectomy and no chemotherapy you have a 78
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of survival anyway so she always you know she always runs with this line if I didn't do
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chemotherapy but the the response to that is well you didn't need to because you had a very good
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chance of survival anyway without the chemotherapy because you had a mastectomy but Kay you know
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always curiously whenever she's preaching to her followers or she's trying to gain um traction and
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persuaded to go her way. She never reals to the conventional treatment that she did
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or she actively downplays it. How do you feel about your mum now
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And I noticed that you referred to her largely as Kate Gabriel rather than mum. I mean, look
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there's an unemotional way I can put it. I don't have any..
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I blame her for my sister's death. So obviously there's that, I guess anger
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is a word towards her there, but there's no love lost between us i don't feel any love for her um and for me it's uh you know i don't view
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her as a mother i just i view her as a malicious actor who's you know who took my sister from me
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and a malicious actor that needs to face accountability and needs to face justice you know in the same way that in the same way that a soldier dispassionately um you know does
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his job of neutralizing his enemy it's kind of you know i think it's kind of the approach that i
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take of just you know dispassionately pursuing um justice and accountability for this woman
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what would justice look like what should happen to to kate so obviously the we had to get the
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coroner's increase out of the way first which will you know all establish the facts of the case um that you know my sister's death resulted from a lack of treatment for
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non-hushkin's lymphoma and from that you know um me and my lawyers have spoken and we actively
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want to try and pursue a medical negligence case criminally against my mother. So for me
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that's what justice looks like. And I think in a more macro kind of bigger sense, justice looks
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like law changes that, you know, firstly, do more to deal with health disinformation online, you know
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harmful but, you know, obviously, the online safety bill in its current form doesn't protect
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against harmful but legal content. That would be something I want to get pressure to change
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And more accountability for social media networks and to stop them from prioritising engagement
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over the well-being of society. And I think importantly as well, the one thing I found throughout the whole court case
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was control and coercion laws just completely aren't fit for purpose and to update control and coercion laws
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so they acknowledge these kinds of medical coercion but also so it's you know we can protect the victims of it far better yeah and you're talking
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about the fact that this is depressingly and shockingly common gabriel of course the fact
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that so many people get lured down these these extreme kind of radical rabbit holes
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the answer to this might be no and feel free to say no um do you your mum as a victim in any way on this of brainwashing by others Or do you think she is it hard to see past
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the way that she's behaved in this? So I don't actually see so
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I do believe there are victims to conspiracy theories, but I don't see Kay as a victim
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because if we're looking at sort of like victims and perpetrators, I think the victims are the ones where the conspiracy theory found them
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and they caught it almost in the same way that you catch a virus. My mom had a different strand where she's a very narcissistic personality
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with this almost messianic complex. So she sought out beliefs which make her feel important
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and feed this messianic complex. So Kay was always going to find something to do that
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and she found conspiracy theories to do that. And because there was that sort of active
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because they required that action from her, I don't see her as a victim. in my series and a person who chose to perpetrate them if that makes sense it makes absolute sense
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um and am i right to think that even now she doesn't accept any sort of responsibility
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for what happened to her daughter and your sister so she she accepts um she accepts none whatsoever
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um no so she tries to um chuck a variety of red herrings you know either she's even gone as far
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to claim that my sister didn't even have cancer or that it wasn't a real diagnosis
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Just, you know, anything to basically cover herself. And she's, you know, leveled numerous allegations
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at myself and my brother about her character, which are completely unfounded and just outright false
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So she doesn't necessarily have any responsibility and she seeks to blame everyone else. And I think, to be honest, I think everyone kind of sees through it
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as the, you know, the self-serving, you know, as a self-serving operation that it is from her
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And you've been talking about this very bravely, you've been doing interviews, you've been speaking out about it
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and trying to get, as you say, Gabriel justice for Paloma. I just wanted to finish, you know
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obviously this is a story about your mum and the allegations that you've made against her
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but at the heart of this is obviously your twin sister who's no longer with us. How do you remember her
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I remember her as she was super funny, with a similar sense of humour
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and she was a bit of a walking contradiction because, you know, she went to Cambridge University
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and she was very pretty, so you'd assume she had it all together. But she was incredibly nerdy, incredibly goofy
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You know, like me, we have really bad spatial awareness. She'd always be bumping into stuff
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or she'd walk with a real slouch. So, you know, I just remember her as, you know
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as a sort of, like, funny scatterbrain that she was. Yeah, I think for me it's important that, obviously
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this terrible thing happen to her. But I think it's important that we remember her also
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for the person that she was and the great person that she was. Yeah, that's why I wanted to ask you about it
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And it's her that is driving you to take this action and to try to seek justice for her
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Exactly, exactly. She's not here to. You know, this is the thing where I try not to..
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You know, obviously I feel a certain type of way towards Kay, but I try not to make it all just about all this rage
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I feel towards my mother because the real... Is that hard? Is that hard not to be consumed by hate, anger
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I feel like my love and the grief at the loss of my sister, it completely outweighs any
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kind of feelings of anger because you want, you know, I'd make the whole world shout if
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it meant that my sister could hear how much I loved her again. It outweighs everything
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else and you're just completely focused on justice. You let go of any ideas of what do
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do I personally want, like, how do I personally say shit is anger
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And you just think, what's best for my sister's memory? So I guess, you know, in a weird way, that's kind of easy, I guess
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