This isn't surprising. Many generic antibiotics are made by overseas companies or cheaper suppliers, which keep the costs down, probably below a few dollars for a weeks supply. This is a good move for Publix because if each customer simply buys a few items in the grocery store they break even and every customer they steal away from other chains is a bonus for them.

As for the comment that this will increase bacterial resistance faster, I am not so sure. You will still need a doctor's prescription in order to obtain the cheap drugs from the pharmacy and that shouldn't be easy to come by, especially as the campaign to educate physicians and the public as to what requires an antibiotic and what does not takes off. The barrier to incorrect use of these drugs should not (and probably has not occurred in the past) be who can afford the drugs at the pharmacy, but rather at the physician's discretion to weed out inappropriate usage.

I don't think this will alter the effectiveness of antibiotics any more than it is already influenced by doctor's prescriptions.  It's not like they're handing out free amoxicillin next to the "take a penny" bucket.  Also, is it really so easy to conclude that universal access to an antibiotic decreases its effectiveness?  The converse is to allow people to walk around us, functioning as breeding reservoirs of billions of the bugs.  Other bugs don't use humans as their primary breeding grounds, only showing up in the body when we get splashed from the wrong puddle or bit by the wrong spider.  These germs should always be treatable with the same antibiotics, because their main breeding grounds aren't exposed to them (yet).

Also, this story reminds me of a (possibly apocryphal) story from the mid-80s--two grocers had a price war over bananas that got so fierce, after one offered its bananas for free, the other started taping pennies to every bunch.

(is 3fingerspointback)