I want to quote the following passage (actually, the original passage as somewhat longer but let's consider this a minimal working example)
Awareness of others, can address affective needs.
but the misplaced comma bothers me.
The common sic is not only often perceived to be impolite due to its overuse as a way ridicule the original author of a text, it also seems overkill in this case and – worst of all – it might not be clear that it relates to the tiny comma that comes right before but might be understood to refer to "awareness of others" instead:
Awareness of others, [sic] can address affective needs.
A missing comma could just be put in square brackets itself as a way to more or less silently add it to the quotation without misquoting but the least distracting way to remove a comma that I could come up with is
[Awareness of others] can address affective needs.
Of course silently dropping the comma would be even less distracting but it might also constitute a misquotation:
Awareness of others can address affective needs.
What is your opinion on this? Is there a standard or otherwise widely accepted way to do this?