problems with @ symbol in varchar field

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I am trying to do a search on a varchar field containing email addresses,
however the @ symbol seems to be creating problems, any suggestions? Current
code:

use strict;
use CGI::Carp "fatalsToBrowser";
use CGI ":standard";
use DBI;
use CGI qw(param);
my $email = param('email');
my ($dbh, $sth);

$dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:user:localhost","database","pa ssword");
my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM database WHERE email = $email");
$sth->execute;

my @record = $sth->fetchrow();
my $email = $record[0];
my $balance = $record[14];
print"Content-type:text/html\n\n";
print
"<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"1\" color=\"#006600\">$email
$balance</font>";
print "\n";
$sth->finish;

$dbh->disconnect;