diff --git a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
index 85dc5b1c53..c648cf3ace 100644
--- a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 module HtmlHelper
   def strip_html(html)
-    strip_tags(html).gsub(/ /i, ' ').gsub(/&/i, '&')
+    strip_tags(html).andand.gsub(/ /i, ' ').andand.gsub(/&/i, '&')
   end
 end
diff --git a/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..606d301cbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+require 'spec_helper'
+
+describe HtmlHelper do
+  class HelperStub
+    extend ActionView::Helpers::SanitizeHelper::ClassMethods
+    include ActionView::Helpers::SanitizeHelper
+  end
+
+  subject do
+    obj = HelperStub.new
+    obj.extend HtmlHelper
+  end
+
+  describe "stripping html from a string" do
+    it "strips tags" do
+      subject.strip_html('<p><b>Hello</b> <em>world</em>!</p>').should == 'Hello world!'
+    end
+
+    it "removes nbsp and amp entities" do
+      subject.strip_html('Hello&nbsp;world&amp;&amp;').should == 'Hello world&&'
+    end
+
+    it "returns nil for nil input" do
+      subject.strip_html(nil).should be_nil
+    end
+  end
+end