Believe that if you wish, but an incredible amount of public money has gone into cold fusion; a number of otherwise reputable scientific institutions, supported by public funds have allowed their credibility to be tarred by this junk; and it all became fair game when the press releases started pouring out like raw sewage. Were it just private funds from consenting adults no one would much care.
Rossi to my knowledge has asked for no public funds.
an incredible amount of public money has gone into cold fusion
***Not nearly as much as for trying to control hot fusion, like Tokomak reactors. If one were to look at the number of MJoules produced/$dollar, LENR would tower over hot fusion.