Phil Coale / AP file

Shopping cart handles are even grosser than you think.

We've all been warned about the germiest areas of the shopping mall -- the bathroom sinks, escalator handrails and dirty food court tables.

But what about those hacking, sniffling people standing next to us in the checkout line?

"I've had people cough all over me or cough into their hand and then hand me money," says Lisa Phillips, 49, of Eugene, Ore., who's worked in retail for six years. "It's like they want to share. ... I feel like saying, 'Have you heard of online shopping?'"

Dr. Paul Kassab, who practices internal medicine at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, says going out shopping with a bad cold or flu can definitely put others at risk.

"I wouldn't call them walking germ factories but you could do some serious germ spreading without knowing it," he says. "If someone has a cough or is sneezing or blowing their nose, then basically the germ -- whatever it is -- will be on their hands. If you're handing people your credit card, looking at stuff on the shelves and putting it back, using a shopping cart -- anything you handle will have germs on it."

Shopping carts, in particular, have been shown to harbor all kinds of germs -- and not just cold and flu bugs. A study in March found that 50 percent of them carried E. coli and 72 percent carried markers for fecal bacteria.

Colds and the flu are what most people pick up this time of year, though. And Phillips, who's sold everything from toys to books to women's lingerie, says she's experienced plenty of germ warfare during the holiday retail season.

"People will have little kids with them and they'll have a nice croupy cough and green stuff coming out of every orifice and then they'll let their kids gnaw on all kinds of toys and clothes," she says. "And then they'll hand it to you and say, 'I don't want this' after their kid has totally germed it out. It's disgusting. You have to put on gloves and throw it away."

Kassab says sickos who still feel the need to shop should make sure they wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer as much as possible.

"Obviously, if you're coughing, cough into your sleeve," he says. "But it's really more the touch. If you're out shopping and you have a cold, using Purell would tremendously reduce the chance of giving it to others."

Is it possible to pass along a cold or flu bug to someone in a gaily-wrapped holiday package?

"That's a tough one to answer," says Kassab. "Probably not if the gift has been wrapped for more than a day or two. Most bugs need a host or they'll die."

Last minute sickly shoppers may want to take advantage of a store's gift wrapping service, though.

Got a cold or the flu and feeling feverish? You may not want to be so quick to reach for a pill to get rid of it, a new study suggests.

Scientists have found more evidence that allowing your fever to burn out may actually help certain types of immune cells to work more efficiently. They say that a type of lymphocyte called CD8+Cytotoxic T-cell is capable of destroying virus-infected and tumor cells and low-grade fevers enhance them.

Researchers from the Department of Immunology at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N. Y. injected two groups of mice with an antigen and watched the T-cells activate. They raised the body temperature two degrees centigrade in half the mice, and the other half maintained a normal body temperature.

The warmed mice showed a greater number of the CD8 T-cells that were capable of destroying infected cells. Their findings were in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

Scientists have long known that a fever is the body’s protective response to fight off bacteria and viruses. If you can stand the discomfort until your fever reaches 102, Dr. Amesh A. Adalja says it’s fine to let the fever go away on its own – but not always.

“Once the body temperature reaches certain levels, it becomes dangerous because it can be toxic to brain cells, and can also precipitate seizures as well as increase your heart rate and basal metabolic rate, causing people to more likely become dehydrated,” says Adalja, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

It's probably best not to take the chance with a feverish child, or with an adult if the fever spikes higher than 102 degrees. A high fever in some children can result in seizures, he says. Adalja also warns it’s also not worth the risk to your own health if you have heart disease, have suffered a stroke or endure other medical complications.

“This is not a blanket recommendation,” he says. “Secondary consequences to the fever can cause other conditions in the patient to occur or worsen. If someone has a persistent fever of 104, it’s a sign of infection, and it’s not just some viral thing you are  going to get over.”

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