Given the stereotype of public transportation as teeming with germs, could showing some extra skin on the subway increase a person's risk of catching an infectious disease? "It depends what they do there on the subway without their pants on," said Dr. Aaron Glatt, an infectious diseases specialist and president of St. Joseph Hospital in Bethpage, N.Y. "If they're just sitting on the subway, then it's not a problem." Glatt said the pantless riders are unlikely to be at extra risk of catching or transmitting infections. "It's really not that much different from wearing shorts," Glatt said.