Well to sum it up, the way it's added in the database is really poorly done. Data should *never* be saved as a comma separated list in a text field in the database. That's just poor practice and ruins the normal forms. Instead a new table is needed to link the two tables together properly on ID numbers.

Whoever wrote that part of the system should be ashamed and recreate it properly (or get fired and then someone else can do it properly). Then we can avoid having to do all these workarounds.