* Rosanna Benzi; Disabled Rights Activist Confined to Iron Lung

Rosanna Benzi, 43, who spent 29 years in an iron lung, where she championed the rights of the disabled. Miss Benzi was stricken at 14 with a rare form of pneumonia that paralyzes the respiratory muscles and inhibits breathing. She had no option but to spend the rest of her life in a chamber with only her head exposed. The chamber increases atmospheric pressure and simulates lung depression to make breathing possible. Ms. Benzi edited the Italian magazine Gli Altri (The Others), which addresses the physical and social barriers to the general acceptance of the disabled. She was in the process of drafting a new “Bill of Rights for the Disabled” upon discovering in 1989 that she had an abdominal tumor. After an operation to remove the tumor, her health steadily declined. “Maybe some people (in my situation) would choose death; I always prefer life,” she said a year ago. In Genoa, Italy, on Monday of heart failure.