Why haven't they yanked those suckers out? My brother got his tonsils out out after infection number 2.

There was an assessment for this and deemed not worth the risk because of the size of the connective tissues/blood supply and closeness to major blood vessels.

Because as an adult the operation is genuinely full of risk. Think about the anatomy of your neck and how close your tonsils are to your major blood vessels.

Sometimes doctors make choices that reflect a landscape of risk the patient is no more prepared to understand than the doctor is ready to run a network test. People who say they “know they need something” are often confidently wrong.