The National Butterfly Center sits along a natural border, the meandering Rio Grande. And for the center's executive director, Marianna Treviño Wright, that's what draws thousands of nature lovers every year to rural Mission, Texas. 

"The Butterfly Center is a place where people come to unwind, to enjoy wild free-flying butterflies, to bird watch, some of them just sit in the blind by the stream, because the sound of the water as you can hear is very relaxing," Treviño Wright said.

But amid the tranquility, Treviño Wright now lives unsettled, after getting a multitude of death threats based on lies and a smear campaign against the center.

"They know that they're full of it," Treviño Wright said. "They know everything that they're saying is false."

A Rumble user named Christie Hutcherson posted, "Why are you more concerned about butterflies than the children being trafficked right behind this center?"

"None of that is remotely true," Treviño Wright said. "We're open seven days a week to visitors, most of whom have very long camera lenses to families. We have the sleepover under the stars for Girl Scouts here where we camp out. We do camping one to one for families. We go on night hikes for owls and and black lightning to sea creatures that glow in the dark. None of that is remotely true. It is 100% a lie."

The allegations hurled at the center started in 2019 when it stopped the Trump administration's border wall building efforts on its land in court. It aroused the ire of immigration hardliners.

In January the region hosted a conservative conference and fundraiser called "We Stand America," drawing far right personalities, activists and a congressional candidate from Virginia named Kimberly Lowe.

Lowe, with her children in the car and a companion named Michelle, showed up to the center on a quiet Friday and live streamed.

Treviño Wright's son was covering for an employee who was out sick. 

"He doesn't normally work here," Treviño Wright said. "I was in the conference room on a call when he interrupted me. He came in with a note and he said, 'Mom, there are two women here, and one of them said she's running for Congress, and the other one says she's secret service.' So, of course, that gets my attention." 

Lowe is a Republican seeking to be the nominee for the 9th House district in Virginia. Her social media shows images of her attending the Jan. 6 rally which then turned into an attempt to over turn the 2020 election. In an interview with Newsy, she says she did not enter the Capitol. Her Facebook shows various videos and photos of her journeying across the southwest border looking for evidence of undocumented immigration and child trafficking. None of which she shows in her live streams.

Lowe sent Newsy screenshots of messages directing her to the center, but she did not identify who the reporter was. Treviño Wright says she grew suspicious of Lowe's intentions after her son told her about social media history.

When Lowe and her companion were told to leave, things started to go awry. 

"Then they start with, 'So you're okay with the illegals and the babies being raped' and all this stuff," Treviño Wright said. "I told my son... just go ahead and call the police."

Wright says she blocked Lowe's phone camera and knocked it down, then the two then struggled.

"Kimberly tackles me, and then my arm on the ground, and my son busts out of the building and I'm on the ground, and he's kind of over me and between me and Michelle in just a flash."

Then Lowe and her companion high tailed it in her car.

Treviño Wright says the recording of Lowe's livestream, which Lowe has since deleted off her own Facebook page, shows the moment Lowe nearly ran over Wright's son.

A spokesman for the Mission Police Department says a misdemeanor assault charge has been referred to the city attorney against Lowe. He added that the department has never been called to investigate child trafficking anywhere near the center. The U.S. Border Patrol does not provide migrant apprehension data by station or zone.

"I never imagined that I would work at a place or be in charge of a place engaged in the horrible things they are lying about us doing," Treviño Wright said.

She says a Hidalgo County Republican advised her about the threats coming her way, so she shut the center down during the conference and now, indefinitely.

She says the threats began in earnest when a doctored image of a dock spread virally online in 2019, after the center sued the federal government and then later when the center filed suit against

"We Build The Wall" — a private border wall building effort spearheaded by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

"They chose to string us up and swat at us to use us as the straw man for these outrageous and malicious lies designed to inflame their donor base and motivate them to give more money," Treviño Wright said.

The fundraising effort later lead to federal fraud charges for Bannon, for which former President Trump pardoned him. But he did not pardon his partner Brian Kolfage, who repeated false claims about Treviño Wright and the center through various online publications. Kolfage did not respond to Newsy for comment.

Disinformation expert and journalist Brooke Binkowski says the purpose of the smear campaign is clear   

"They're trying to incite stochastic violence and terrorism against vulnerable groups for a specific political goal," Binkowski said. "What they're trying to do, again, they're trying to get a bunch of like racist vigilante groups down there to act on what they think are scenes of people being trafficked."

Treviño Wright says she now openly carries a pistol for protection.

"It has been distressing beyond words," Treviño Wright said. "It has definitely damaged my psyche. It has hurt my relationships. I've lost friends and even relations with family members because they believe this stuff."

She'd prefer that the only rabbit holes people see at the center are literal ones and not conspiracy theories.

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President Biden's announcement earlier this week that the U.S. will donate half a billion doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine around the globe is the largest any single country has made so far. 

"Even though 250 million is still only a small portion of the entire population that needs to be vaccinated in those countries, it will go a long way to vaccinate people above 65 years of age, as well as the front line workers like health care workers," said Richard Reithinger, vice president of global health at RTI International. 

It also further establishes the U.S. as a world leader in vaccine distribution at a time when some public health experts have called on wealthy nations to do more to help those outside their borders. 

The White House says the doses, which will be produced in the U.S., will begin shipping in August. The first 200 million will be delivered by the end of this year. The remaining 300 million will go out in the first half of 2022. 

Pfizer's vaccine is a two-dose regimen that has to be kept cold during every stage of transportation. Once it's removed from ultra cold storage, the doses only last about five days. That could present some logistical challenges, and possibly determine where the vials are sent. 

"Larger urban centers should be also prioritized, where, of course, you are more likely to find the type of infrastructure that you need to distribute the vaccine," Reithinger said. 

Senior administration officials say the total cost is still being determined, but they expect to spend at least $1.5 billion on from the American Rescue Plan. 

Still, some say the U.S. and other nations need to do more to vaccinate the world. Democratic congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi praised the announcement in a statement, but added, "This must be only the first step in a larger effort to expand and accelerate the production and delivery of the billions of doses we need to end the pandemic."

President Biden has also said the U.S. will export 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 20 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines this summer. He said the doses would be given with no strings attached.

"We're doing this to save lives, to end this pandemic. That's it. Period," President Biden said Thursday. 

This story originally reported by Kellan Howell on Newsy.com

"I was a healthy 30-year-old firefighter paramedic working out five to six days a week. And this is how COVID affected me," said Karyn Bishof, founder of the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project. 

Karyn Bishof was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March of 2020. She had a moderate case and was never hospitalized. But now, more than a year later, she says lingering symptoms are so bad she can no longer work.

"I'm still dealing with over 60 different symptoms," she said. "I've had a headache every single day at a level of seven out of 10 or higher... I don't sleep. I may be average, you know, 20 to 25 hours a week of sleep... my feet and my legs swell and turn purple."

Bishop is a long hauler — a group that experiences symptoms long after recovering from the coronavirus.

And public health experts warn long COVID is the next big health emergency in the wake of COVID-19. 

"It is a concerning problem because so many people have gotten sick that even if only a small fraction have a persistent disability or medical problems, that's still a lot of people in the U.S. and globally," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Georgetown University.

There's no official count of long haulers in the US. A recent CDC study found two-thirds of non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients went back to their doctors seeking relief from symptoms up to six months after contracting the virus. A new Stanford University study finds it’s even higher for those who were hospitalized.

In February, the NIH launched a $1.15 billion initiative to study and collect data on long COVID, its causes, and possible treatments. The four-year program is only in the beginning stages. 

"Ideally, this would have come many months earlier, and we have more of that data now," Goodman said. 

Democratic Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia has introduced a $90 million bipartisan bill. It would create a patient registry where long haulers could self-report their symptoms and treatments that have worked for them. And it would provide the CDC with funding to educate medical providers and the general public about long COVID.  

"Getting lots of dialogue and a sense of community with other people who suffer from long COVID can give people, first of all, sense that they're not crazy and a sense of hope and a sense of how the disease unfolds and what other people do to get better," Beyer said. 

It could also help bolster the case for continued financial aid as the country recovers from the pandemic.

"As we develop this much larger database of long COVID symptoms, it gives us a much better policy argument to extend unemployment benefits to the people that have long COVID," Beyer said. 

Those benefits are essential for long haulers like Bishof,  who says she has to spend most of her day in bed.

"If you're out of work, people are losing their homes, they're losing their cars, they're falling behind on bills and credit cards," Bishof said. "Changing the qualifications for some of these programs like food stamps or like Medicaid, allowing these people to obtain medical coverage and obtain at least the basic needs to provide for them and their families during this interim time is imperative."

Kellan Howell at Newsy first reported this story.