George Rusch, PhD, DABT, ATS, ERT, FAIHA

George Rusch, PhD, DABT, ATS, ERT, FAIHA, is a Senior Toxicologist at J.S. Held LLC. Dr. Rusch has a MA in biochemistry from the City College of New York and completed a PhD in chemistry from Adelphi University in 1972.

Dr. Rusch was the Director of Toxicology and Risk Assessment at Honeywell for 30 years. He has extensive experience in risk assessment for exposure to chemicals and in the toxicology of fluorinated refrigerants. For ten years, beginning in 1987, Dr. Rusch chaired an international committee of global refrigerant producers to evaluate non-ozone depleting refrigerant replacements. In 1987 Dr. Rusch was the first chairman of the Emergency Response Planning Committee at AIHA and in 1995, he was appointed chair of the newly-created Federal Advisory Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for EPA, a position he held for twelve years. Dr. Rusch was also one of the reviewers for the European Acute Exposure Guidance and the Department of Energy’s Temporary Emergency Exposure Levels.

Dr. Rusch has served on the National Academy’s Committee on Toxicology and as a member of several of their review committees. He has also served on several OECD committees revising inhalation toxicology protocols. He was chair of the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals’ Task Force for Hydrofluoroalkanes and a member of their Task Force for the Evaluation of Cardiac Sensitization Test Methods and the Task Force for Guidance on Assessment Factors to Derive No-Effect Levels (DNELs). He has served on the Rutgers University Advisory Committee on the Graduate Program in Toxicology and was an Adjunct Professor. He also served on the U. S. Army’s toxicology review panel, CHPPM.

Dr. Rusch is a member of the Society of Toxicology, the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the European Society of Toxicology and the Mid Atlantic Society of Toxicology. He is listed on the British and European Registry of Toxicologists and is a Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology, a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. In addition to several publications on the toxicology of fluorocarbons and risk assessment methodology, he has authored or coauthored monographs on all current refrigerants and exposure guidelines for many different substances.

He has received awards for his contributions from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (both for stratospheric ozone protection and leadership of the AEGL committee), The United Nations Environmental Program (ozone protection) and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (risk assessment). He also has received career achievement awards from the ACGIH (Herbert E. Stockinger Award) and U. of Mass Soils, Sediment, and Water Conference.