Ensure that special markdown characters are properly escaped

[PeterStaar-IBM]

Following the work here, we need to ensure that we properly escape all special markdown characters in markdown.

Characters You Can Escape

You can use a backslash to escape the following characters.

Character	Name
\	backslash
`	backtick (see also escaping backticks in code)
*	asterisk
_	underscore
{ }	curly braces
[ ]	brackets
< >	angle brackets
( )	parentheses
#	pound sign
+	plus sign
-	minus sign (hyphen)
.	dot
!	exclamation mark
|	pipe (see also escaping pipe in tables)