By Jorge Casuso

February 2, 2020 -- A group of doctors who made headlines after a viral video questioned the medical response to the coronavirus pandemic has launched a petition drive opposing the use of pressure to administer the new vaccines.

The Petition To Stop Forced Experimental Vaccines is being circulated online by America's Frontline Doctors, whose July video featuring a prominenat Santa Monica pediatrician was censored by Facebook.

"We need your support to prevent people from being intimidated or pressured into taking experimental vaccines," the petition reads.

"Your health and medical conditions are personal and private and nobody should be permitted to violate that, including an employer, an airline, or a government agency."

The petition warns that "the coercion can be implemented by government legislation or through policy directives by large private and public corporations."

"This type of assault on your medical privacy is invasive, aggressive, and unethical," the petition states.

The group's video posted online in late July claimed that a massive disinformation campaign was spreading widespread and unfounded panic about the pandemic ("Prominent Santa Monica Doctor Featured in Censored Coronavirus Video," July 28, 2020).

In the video, Dr. Robert C. Hamilton -- a Santa Monica pediatrician famous for his method of quieting a crying infant -- called for the reopening of schools, saying that data indicate that "children are not the drivers of this pandemic.

"They are not passing it to their parents, they are not passing it to their teachers," said Hamilton, who established Pacific Ocean Pediatrics in Santa Monica in 1996.

"We can send children back to school without fear" if proper precautions are taken, Hamilton said.

The video -- which also questioned the efficacy of facemask mandates -- garnered 17 million views on Facebook before the platform took it down.

While COVID-19 cases and deaths have been surging across most of the country, pressure has been building to reopen classrooms shut down when the virus began spreading last March and schools turned to remote teaching.

Shortly after taking office, President Biden rolled out a plan to reopen schools by spring.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is in ongoing talks with lawmakers to get more public schools to reopen while nearly all of the State remains in the most restrictive tier.

But the push to get students back into the classroom is being met with stiff resistance from teacher's unions across the country.