In two controlled clinical trials with alternate allocation of patients, Kopeloff, Cheney, and Kirby found no effectiveness of Cotton's psychiatric surgeries, as patients who improved already had that prognosis and others did so without surgeries. They presented their findings at the American Psychiatric Association's 1922 and 1923 annual meetings, and published two papers.</ref> Most of Cotton's data were questioned at Johns Hopkins University by Phyllis Greenacre, who later helped steer American psychiatry into psychoanalysis. Colectomy for psychosis vanished except in Trenton until Cotton—who used publicity and word of mouth, kept the 30% death rate unpublicized, and passed a 1925 investigation by New Jersey Senate—died by heart attack in 1933.