WordPress 2.0.3 improperly escaping single and double quotes on editing

I recently upgraded from WP 2.0.2 to 2.0.3 and noticed a problem. If I add a link or comment with apostrophes or quotes to WP, it gets added to the database properly and displayed properly. However, if I then edit the link or comment and save it, the data in the database suddenly contains escape characters (backslashes) before all the single and double quotes, and these backslashes can’t be removed by editing again. You have to go into the database (in my case, I used phpMyAdmin) to manually edit the entries to remove the erroneous backslashes. I am not too familiar with the WP code, but I’m guessing that the problem lies in the save-after-edit functionality.

PS – I could not find this topic posted for this version of WP in the WP forums or on trac. Please advise whether this is an existing issue and if a fix has already been made.