The complainants of harassment within the Cnio communicate: “There is no fear of María Blasco, there is terror” | Science | EUROtoday

Four individuals who denounced María Blasco, director of the National Oncological Research Center (CNIO) for harassment, abuse of energy and different issues, have agreed to inform El País expertise. Most of them do it anonymously, as a result of they’re afraid of retaliation by Blasco. Its circumstances are a number of the greater than 10 registered within the heart since 2013, and that collects an inside report that’s already within the fingers of the Government and the employers of the company. These are inside complaints that didn’t prosper for numerous causes. Among the complainants are bosses, administrators, investigators, fellows. At least 5 are girls. On Wednesday the Board of Trustees will meet to evaluate the continuity of the middle’s administration: Government Sources guarantee El País that the way forward for María Blasco will likely be determined, which has been in command of the CNIO since 2011.

The largest Cancer Research Center in Spain goes by one among its worst crises because it was created in 1998. CNIO drags critical deficiencies in its scientific infrastructure. In addition, there’s a labor battle resulting from wage variations, in addition to battle between the administration and its staff. Twenty -four scientific chiefs of the middle, half of all within the company, require the Government to stop Blasco.

The director of the CNIO has determined to proceed in command of the place. He has denounced to be a sufferer of a misinformation marketing campaign, says he harasses her for being a girl and suffers a maneuver of discredit and slander by some media that has come to check with what was suffered by the Jews throughout the Holocaust.

“Regarding the accusations of harassment, those that may have occurred in the CNIO, will have followed the corresponding protocol, which the manager must activate, Juan Arroyo, as can be seen from the protocols themselves,” Blasco replied by electronic mail to El País . “Since 2013 the Code of Ethical Conduct and since 2023 it has been replaced by the Protocol of action in situations of internal conflict, violence and harassment in CNIO. When something has been settled according to protocols, work or moral harassment has not been corroborated, or abuse of authority by the director of the CNIO, ”he added. Only a scientific organization has come out in defense of Blasco: the Association of Women Researchers and Technologies (AMIT).

In the Cnio “There is not any worry of María Blasco, there may be terror,” confesses one of the people he has denounced, and who claims to have suffered harassment of Blasco “for years.” This affected assures that he knows other colleagues who also want to report, but do not dare. When working in science, superior references are essential, he explains. Face the boss “You can truncate your profession eternally,” says this person. “The image of Mary is clean of outside doors, but from inside it is terrible. It has a total lack of respect towards everyone, ”he says.

Several of the consulted sources declare having suffered mental and physical health problems due to the pressure and the harassment situations they have lived in the CNIO. These disorders include anxiety crisis, chest pressures strong enough to go to the emergency room, including neurological problems, according to two complainants. One of them, the Emergency doctor explained that he suffered anxiety and recommended denouncing the Company Committee. Sometimes, they started crying while recounted these experiences.

One of the people who denounced Blasco before the management of the center speaks of unbearable work loads, because it spent months doing the task that four people used to do. To this Blasco pressures were added to be faster. “You are suboptima”, “You are late”, were some of Blasco’s phrases, according to this person. “There were nights that sat down to work and ended up seeing dawn. My children woke up and took them to school, ”he explains. “They made me cry and so they noticed me crying on the pc display screen, they made me see that I didn’t comply,” says this person on Blasco and other high positions of the Cnio. This complainant says that the director of the CNIO makes gas light to the employees that she considers that they have failed, for example, never directing them directly, doing as if they did not exist. “The meetings were torture. The worst thing is that I was not aware that that was wrong, I thought it was what had to be done to be excellent, as Blasco advocated. Then I talked to other people. And when I was aware, I did not report it for panic. I would not have occurred to me, ”he confesses, in reference to making a formal complaint of his case.

This person remembers that at the time of living the situation there was no clear harassment protocol. “The scientific committee was the one who decided, and this body presided over it [Blasco] Together with a person attached to her and a researcher. Even if I was sorry, they would have not done anything. I have never regretted not denouncing. There was no guarantee. And I knew I wanted to throw me, ”he confesses. According to this complainant, there are more employees of the CNIO in the same situation: “There is a lot of fear. People don’t speak, they don’t react. ”

“Bad individual”

“Aunt cool”, “Who do you assume you’re”, “You will not be solely cool, however unhealthy individual”, “You will not be a group participant”, “I do not know what you will have in your head and also you resist”, “You do not work Since you will have a discount in working hours. ” These are a number of the feedback {that a} researcher from María Blasco obtained in a “closed doors” Telomeres and Telomerase, which directs Blasco. The sufferer reported these information in an electronic mail to administration to which this newspaper has had entry and that’s among the many documentation dealt with by the Board of Trustees, chaired by the General Secretary of Research, Eva Ortega Paíno. The complainant, of Brazilian origin, additionally blames racist insults to Blasco. “Black magic is not done here,” he snapped at that assembly, in response to the doc. The complainant thought-about it a remark “with an extremely racist connotation referring to my race and my skin color.” “The screams of this meeting could be heard by several witnesses outside the spite of Dr. Blasco. I was crying from his office and came crying to pick up my son from school, ”particulars the e-mail. María Blasco got here to say goodbye to this individual after which inform her that she reached her if she requested for forgiveness, in response to the sufferer herself in her electronic mail.

This individual assured in his grievance that Blasco separated her from her venture and harassed her psychologically. He additionally assures that he suffered a discount of “forced” workday and concatenation of short-term contracts.

Another complainant explains a few assembly with Blasco: “I felt fatal, insulted in front of all my colleagues and superiors, unable to defend myself.” “I was very uploaded by the tension, I thought I was going to give me something, and that because of the bronch of the meeting and the accusations, which I did not understand, as little, they threw us out of the cnio,” he says.

“I have heard shouts of María Blasco, have heard them people from their group and have also been heard by people of very high responsibility in the CNIO,” explains a scientist from the middle who prefers to not be recognized, additionally for worry of reprisals.

The overwhelming majority of those complaints didn’t prosper for a number of causes. Sometimes, the complainants themselves withdrew for worry of reprisals, in any other case they needed to go to the information of organs wherein María Blasco was, clarify sources of the CNIO. Others got here to information of the Carlos III National Institute of Health, however nothing was executed, the sources consulted clarify. The present protocol towards harassment within the heart is of April 2023 and already supplies ensures such because the id of the complainants stays nameless and that the complaints are managed by attorneys and exterior committees, sources of the CNIO clarify.

In 2023, a fellow denounced Blasco for harassment and abuse of energy. In this case, an exterior investigation was made that exempt Blasco from harassment, but it surely did detect a doable case of abuse of energy.

The Austrian biochemist Erwin Wagner, 75, starred within the first grievance towards Blasco that’s recorded within the report dealt with by the Board of Trustees. The case dates again to 2013, when the researcher resigned as a deputy director for disagreements with the way in which Blasco directed the Cnio, Wagner explains to this newspaper. “At the beginning of a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Council, I did not accept Blasco’s decision not electronic. “Before I spoke, Blasco said that she was the boss and that we had to follow her decisions, we liked or not. It was the beginning of what I called, in front of the international members of the committee, a dictatorship, and from that moment I supported it anymore and resigned from my deputy director on the spot. She stopped talking to me and if we crossed, or greeted me, ”adds Wagner, who ended up abandoning the CNIO in 2018, and currently directs his research group at the University of Medicine of Vienna and the University Hospital of this city. “It appears that justice will lastly be executed,” says Wagner in reference to the next Board of Trustees, “however it’s already late: nice harm has been executed, and there was an excessive amount of nepotism and lies.”

Do you will have extra details about this case or different related ones? You can write to ndominguez@elpais.es.