A 65-year-old woman in Ohio had recently started vaping again after seven years away from it when she grew short of breath. Over a month, her breathing worsened, and steroids did nothing to stop it.
Doctors suspected a vaping-related lung injury. But tests eventually pointed to a second, far rarer problem: autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, a disease in which surfactant, a slippery fat-and-protein mixture, builds up in the lungs' tiny air sacs and blocks oxygen from reaching the blood.
