> Whatever the cause, it has to be something extremely subtle and very unlikely to occur.

We don't know that, or not with the interpretation I think you're making. I mean, the correlation here between vaping and lipoid pneumonia is objectively much stronger than it is between smoking and lung cancer after a similar amount of use.

I guess most epidemiologists would go with you and bet that this is "probably" not as bad, long term. But given the evidence at hand that's still a pretty significant risk.