51 Articles Handled by a Specific Academic Editor on PLoS ONE Were Retracted
Recently, the 5GH Team notes that 51 articles on PLoS ONE, handled by a specific academic editor, LV Zhihan (吕智涵), were retracted, mainly due to "peer review integrity and potential manipulation of the publication process" or "peer review integrity and similarities across articles", raising concerns whether the handling editor, LV Zhihan, got involved the manipulated publication process.
Those articles were published from 2017 to 2021, however, most of them (31 of 51) were published in 2020. Although LV works in the field of computer science, the disciplines of some articles were health, economy and others. And those articles were retracted from 2023 to recently. Although some articles retracted in 2023 indicated problematic peer review process, most of the articles were not retracted until 2025. It remains unclear whether the journal/publisher did not note the problematic peer review until recently.
The 5GH Team reached to PLoS ONE and the ethic team of PLoS for further information about whether LV got involved in the manipulated publication process, and whether the journal/publisher did or will inform LV's institution about his role on those articles. The team is waiting for replies from the journal/publisher.
The recent publications by LV suggest that he is working for Uppsala University, Sweden, although the institutions for LV were assigned to be Qiongdao University and University College London when he was handling those articles. LV currently is also the editorial board members of several IEEE journals.
The 5GH Team will post the update if we have any.
