Yup, it sure does. Hot fusion funding should have been cut drastically long ago after fifty-plus years of abject failure. Cold fusion, OTOH, has long surpassed hot fusion in THE datum that matters, a COP greater than unity.
That the holder of the keys in high-energy physics have succeeded in obfuscating the real situation reflects badly on the scientific ethics of that community.
No surprise. Consider the number of chemistry and physics professors who would have to re-learn their subject and you can expect even greater resistance than when Plate Tectonics came on the scene in geology and geophysics.
Besides, the high-energy guys have been looking for a death ray or a trump card weapons system, whether they know it or not. LENR is more of a civil engineering feat.