I'm hoping with this new guideline, the story will start to change. We've seen signs of this already with the combination of the draft guideline and the long covid effect.
In recent years, the SMC has also made sure to include a "dissenter" among the people it will release statements from, perhaps because it has realized to present just cronies and enablers of researchers to say nice things is no longer credible. Kate Kelland is no longer serving as a publicist for the SMC, having left her job at Reuters for a science communications job with some other organization.