[AccessD] Pls help with ADO to Oracle syntax... Ampersand Character

First, I am doing this through Excel VBA, using ADO and working with an Oracle provider. I am having heartburn getting some data pushed from Excel to Oracle. Apparently the command "SET DEFINE OFF" works only in SQL DEVELOPER and SQL PLUS, it is not some SQL one can simply throw at the Oracle provider via SQL. So in order to inject characters like 

g_Conn.Execute "SET DEFINE OFF  INSERT INTO SID_USERS (USER_SSO) VALUES ('Sanford & Sons');", True
       'runtime error... ORA-00922 missing or invalid option

So I wrote a routine to escape characters like ampersand for any text which I plan to insert into a field using ADO and SQL. May not be robust, but it does turned Sanford & Sons into 

'Sanford ' || '&' || 'Sons'

Now, that works in SQL PLUS but it will not work when trying ADO's Execute - I am still getting an "invalid character" error message.

INSERT INTO SID_USERS ( 
USER_SSO, 
CONAME) 
VALUES ( 'x', 
'Sanford ' || '&' || 'Sons');



Function OracleText(str) As String
Const BADCHARS = "&"
Dim strWorkingText As String
Dim strBAD As String
Dim strFinal As String
Dim bMadesubstitution As Boolean
strWorkingText = str
strWorkingText = Replace$(strWorkingText, "'", "''")

Dim i As Long
Do Until strWorkingText = ""
    For i = 1 To Len(strWorkingText)
        bMadesubstitution = False
        If InStr(BADCHARS, Mid(strWorkingText, i, 1)) > 0 Then
            strBAD = Mid(strWorkingText, i, 1)
            strFinal = strFinal & Mid(strWorkingText, 1, i - 1) & "'|| '" & strBAD & "' || '"
            strWorkingText = Mid(strWorkingText, i + 1)
            bMadesubstitution = True
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
    If Not bMadesubstitution Then
        strFinal = strFinal & strWorkingText
        strWorkingText = ""
    End If
Loop
OracleText = strFinal
End Function