Help - html mail

I'm passing an html email from a form like this: $message = $message_html; where message_html is the text area name. mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); I end up with, for example: <div align=center\"> <table width=550\" border=0\" cellspacing=0\" cellpadding=0\"> <tr> <td bgcolor=#01405A\"><img src=http://www.gfx-design.com/vantico/spacer.gif\" width=1\" height=10\" alt=\" border=0\"></td> </tr> it's trying to escape the quotes and at times completely cutting them out. The same snippet prior to being sent: <div align="center"> <table width="550" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#01405A"><img src="http://www.gfx-design.com/vantico/spacer.gif" width="1" height="10" alt="" border="0"></td> </tr> Why is this happening? How can I stop it? -brian