The brother of a woman who died after being “adversely influenced” to refuse cancer treatment says there are “no protections” for people like his sister.
Cambridge graduate Paloma Shemirani, 23, died in July last year after declining treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma on the advice of her conspiracy theorist parents.
Instead, her mother Kate “Kay” Shemirani led Paloma’s “alternative treatment” programme involving a strict diet, juices and daily coffee enemas.
The PA news agency has been shown evidence that Ms Shemirani had been offering similar programmes to cancer patients, years before Paloma’s death.
Earlier this month, an inquest into Paloma’s death found she “could and should” have survived, and had an 80% chance of recovery if she had undergone chemotherapy.
Her twin brother Gabriel Shemirani said he believes society is living in the “wild west of health misinformation” and wants to stop others from dying like Paloma.
He said he was left “confused” by the coroner’s conclusions, after they found that his mother “did not meet” her duty of care to Paloma but stopped short of finding “unlawful killing”.
Mr Shemirani argues that because “nothing actually physically changed” the coroner’s ruling was “dangerous” and will embolden conspiracy theorists.
His mother is a high-profile conspiracy theorist who was struck off as a nurse in 2021 for spreading “harmful misinformation” about Covid-19.
PA has been shown a collection of emails between Ms Shemirani and various prospective “patients” from 2017, some of whom appear to be expecting cancer treatment.
The patients filled out “consultation forms” where they revealed what they had been diagnosed with and what they were expecting from Ms Shemirani.
One consultation form for a woman who reported having acute leukaemia was filed out by her daughter on her mother’s behalf.
Asked what she wanted from Ms Shemirani, she wrote: “I expect to be successfully treated/healed from leukaemia using the Gerson Therapy.”
According to the information in the email, that woman had less than a year to live if she did not continue with conventional treatment.
The woman with leukaemia was referred to Ms Shemirani by her ex-partner Patrick Vickers, who was one of the other people named by the Coroner has having “influenced” Paloma’s decision to refuse treatment.
Ms Shemirani styles herself online as “the natural nurse” and maintains that she provides consultations rather than promoting her work as curative treatment.
She is a practitioner of Gerson therapy, which includes a strict vegetarian diet and enemas, which Paloma was following prior to her death.
Cancer Research UK says that there is no scientific evidence Gerson therapy can be used as a treatment for cancer.
Another woman wrote in her consultation form that she had undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer and listed “heal from cancer” when asked what she wanted from Ms Shemirani’s treatment.
Asked what she hoped the treatment would achieve, she listed “heal from cancer and all contributing factors/underlying causes” at the top of her answer.
The 1939 Cancer Act prohibits any advertisement offering to treat any person for cancer or prescribe a remedy for it.
Mr Shemirani provided these emails to the coroner’s inquest, which did not admit them as evidence, and to Sussex Police.
He has criticised social services while his sister was alive and said that after her death police were “useless”.
Sussex Police have said that all information sent to them has been carefully reviewed.
Paloma’s older brother Sebastian Shemirani said that the UK authorities are not currently built to deal with conspiracy theorists.
He said: “I think this existing framework that the authorities and safeguarding mechanisms have for understanding abuse doesn’t understand how coercion happens in the mind of the victim.
“It’s not the case that you wake up one day with free will and then you’re bullied into accepting something that you wouldn’t otherwise do, such as rejecting traditional cancer treatment.
“Rather, when you’re a victim of abuse, you learn to blame yourself for the abuse you’re suffering.”
Gabriel Shemirani is worried that without change his sister is going to become “one in a long line of people who die this way” and he does not feel hopeful.
He said: “I tried everything. I tried the High Court, I tried going to a coroner’s inquest, I tried, you know, I went to the BBC and did the Panorama, you know, X, Y and Z, and it still didn’t work.
“It got me 80% of the way there, but then nothing actually physically changed.
“We’re just living in this complete wild west of health misinformation, there are no protections whatsoever for people like my sister.”
He has spoken to lawyers and is considering a judicial review of the inquest to push for an “unlawful killing” finding, or a civil case in the future.
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