Sara Smith<\/span>in Maidstone<\/span>,<\/span><\/p>\n Zac Sherratt<\/span>South East<\/span> and<\/span><\/p>\n Marianna Spring<\/span>Social media investigations correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n A high-profile conspiracy theorist influenced her daughter to reject chemotherapy in favour of alternative treatments, which ultimately led to her death, a coroner has ruled.<\/p>\n Paloma Shemirani, from Uckfield in East Sussex, died in July last year – seven months after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.<\/p>\n Ms Shemirani, 23, had declined chemotherapy in favour of juices and coffee enemas advocated for by her mother, Kate Shemirani, a former nurse who was struck off for her anti-vaccination views.<\/p>\n Coroner Catherine Wood said at Kent and Medway Coroners Court on Thursday: “The influence that was brought to bear on Paloma… did contribute more than minimally to her death.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After her diagnosis in December 2023, Ms Shemirani went to live with her mother and began having five coffee enemas a day, according to her brothers.<\/p>\n In July 2024, she collapsed at home and was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where she died five days later.<\/p>\n An osteopath who saw Ms Shemirani on the morning she collapsed told the inquest he had “never seen” a lymphoid mass like hers in 43 years of practice.<\/p>\n Ms Wood said Ms Shemirani died from the progression of a disease which was curable but not treated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She added that treatment would have given Ms Shemirani an 80% chance of a complete cure.<\/p>\n The Cambridge graduate had initially consented to treatment, the coroner said, adding that “doubts about consent only surfaced after Mrs Shemirani became involved”.<\/p>\n The coroner said Ms Shemirani was being influenced by her own beliefs, her mother’s, her father’s and by those of a family friend – all who advocated the alternative treatment she used.<\/p>\n “I found Mrs Shemirani’s care of her daughter incomprehensible but not unlawful killing,” Ms Wood said.<\/p>\n Ms Shemirani’s mother tried to blame medical staff for her daughter’s death and has previously labelled chemotherapy as “mustard gas”.<\/p>\n Staff at Maidstone Hospital, where Ms Shemirani was diagnosed, the Royal Sussex County Hospital and paramedics all acted appropriately, the inquest found.<\/p>\n Neither her mother or her father – non-medical doctor Faramarz Shemirani – attended the conclusion of the inquest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Her brothers, Gabriel and Sebastian Shemirani, did attend and said the state had “failed” by not classing their sister’s death as an unlawful killing, despite recognising a breach in their mother’s duty of care.<\/p>\n The coroner noted the “striking” family dysfunction, which she said had been “on display very publicly” during the inquest.<\/p>\n “The dynamics within the immediate family were complicated and dysfunctional at the time of Paloma’s death,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"PA](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/3f8b\/live\/1e823010-9e0c-11f0-bc74-c938242ac6b1.jpg.webp\")
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