In the right context, it's good science. The issue with this, and most science reporting, is that the context is missing or otherwise difficult to understand.

This is quite preliminary work, using cell cultures instead of actual organisms. It's quite common for effects seen in cell cultures to be very different from what is observed in whole, living tissue. But it can still be very useful for research: it can identify key diagnostic metrics, suggest mechanisms, and otherwise guide future research.

One issue here is that we already look at general lung function quite well: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14043-2

This study examines the general lung function of non smokers who began vaping, with metrics taken from the start of vaporizer usage. This is about as direct as you can get, though is still an observational study (i.e. they did not randomly assign people to start vaping, for obvious ethical and adherence issues).

The synthesis of these studies would be to include more analysis of lung immune function. The results already suggest that inflammation is not an issue as suggested by the cell culture.

We're supposed to realize that it isn't a "fact". It's a study that has produced interesting results that point to something, but until more research is done, it doesn't mean anything yet.

If that's your version of "negative", then yes, we should look negatively on it.

But more correctly, we should look skeptically on it. Just like all other studies that haven't been replicated scientifically.